1 



RIDES AND STUDIES IN THE 
CANARY ISLANDS. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

LETTERS FROM CRETE. 

{R. Bentley mid Son, 1887.) 
" Exceedingly pleasant to read." — Athenatim. 

" Mr._ Edwardes has the gift of seeing in ordinary men and women 
and ordinary occurrences more than other people would see in them. 
Besides this, his impressions of nature are those of a painter — only 
the suggestiveness of his imagination saves his descriptions from the 
fault of word-painting ; and he possesses a considerable vein of 
humour. ' — Academy. 

" A very vigorous and even brilliant picturing of the island and 
its people."— Pall Mall Gazette. 

"It is difficult to imagine what one could want to know about 
Crete that Mr. Edwardes has left untold." — Spectator. 

"We have seldom read epistles more bright in their gossipping. 
. . . More than many books of statistics and diplomatic documents 
it will help to the true understanding of the Eastern Question." — 
Graphic. 

"These very interesting letters." — St. James's Gazette. 
" We heartily recommend the book." — Guardian. 



RIDES AND STUDIES 

IN THE 

CANARY ISLANDS 



CHARLES EDWARDES 

AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM CRETE," &C. 



ILLUSTRATED. 



T. FISHER UNWIN 

26, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 



I 



gjLn&cvibe'fr to 

BENJAMIN RENSHAW, 

OF 

LAGUNA, TENERIFE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



This book is written for the entertainment both of 
those who visit the Canary Islands and those who 
do not. 

The fortunate few who propose to sojourn under 
the palms and sunshine of Tenerife may be glad to 
learn from it something about the early Canarians, 
whose bones alone remain to us. The Guanches, 
for example, were a race deserving of a fair niche in 
the mausoleum of defunct human types. 

These fortunate few may also welcome the book, 
because it assumes to give a description (inadequate 
enough) of what they hope to see. 

On the other hand, the " Rides and Studies " 
appeals no less to those discreeter travellers who 
do their journeying by the fireside. There is worse 
pastime than climbing a mountain with one's feet on 
the fender. And though it is a pleasure to ride, 
agape with expectation, among strangers in a strange 
land, it is even pleasanter to sit at ease in one's arm- 
chair, under our dull homely skies, and amid familiar 
faces. This the sage majority who travel only among 
the octavos know by heaven-born instinct. 



X 



INTRODUCTION. 



In the building of this little book, I have had help 
which I must gratefully acknowledge. 

To my comrade-in-affliction in the island of Palma, 
(the Rev. C. V. Goddard), I am indebted for most of 
the sketches. Like other human creations, they are 
imperfect; but, for that, "circumstances" are to 
blame, rather than their author. 

The drawing on page 41 is by Miss Yeatman. 

For the photographs here reproduced, I render 
thanks to Mr. A. Samler-Brown and Senor Baeza. 

I have read and digested, with more or less effort, 
a quantity of literature about the Canary Islands : 
histories, epics, rhymes, chronicles, and fables. The 
usage that I have made of this literature seems 
to empower me to set the somewhat respon- 
sible term "Studies" a - pillion to the "Rides" 
of my title. But there is in truth nothing very 
scholastic about the book. And if aught in it appear 
to savour of erudition or antiquarian exploits, let 
praise for this be offered at a venture to the memory 
of the Abbe Viera who, a hundred years ago, un- 
ravelled the tangle of Canarian history. 

Fragments of the " Rides and Studies " have 
already appeared in print in sundry magazines. The 
proprietors and editors of the Cornhill Magazine, 
Temple Bar, The Graphic, the St. James's Gazette, and 
other periodicals are hereby thanked afresh for their 
courteous permission to incorporate these fragments 
in the structure of the book. 

Wolverhampton, 
Nov. 10, 1888. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The S.S. Niger — West Coast merchants — Santa Cruz from 
the sea — The Anaga Hills — The Mole — Nelson and 
July 25, 1797 — The Churches of Santa Cruz — The 
workhouse — Street architecture and the Postigos — 
The Alaineda — Emigration — Santa Cruz a Spanish 
foundation — Statuary in the Plaza — The defects of a 
cosmopolitan seaport . . . . 1 



CHAPTER II. 

The Grand Hotel and Sanatorium of Orotava — Commercial 
decay of the islands— An early ride — Roads and road- 
side scenes — The ungallant driver — Laguna — The 
north side of Tenerife — Matanza — Bencomo, the King 
of Taoro — Victoria — The Valley of Orotava and Hum- 
boldt's praise of it — The Peak 16 



CHAPTER III. 

Sweet idling in Puerto — Trivial excitements of a health 
resort — Puerto as it is and as it was — The old wine 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

trade — Irish monuments in the Church — Puerto's har- 
bour — La Paz — A Guanche sepulchre — Guanche skulls 
— A southern villa — The cochineal insect — Sugar, to- 
bacco, and wine — The ruin of 1826 . . . .28 

CHAPTER IV. 

Various conjectural origins of the name, people, and land of 
the Canary Islands — The island of San Borondon — 
The legendary first inhabitants — The Canaries and the 
Elysian Fields identical 55 

CHAPTER V. 

Tacoronte — Its museum and miraculous crucifix — The 
Guanches — Their mummies and method of embalming 
— Their polity — Coronations — Ceremony of ennobling 
— Religion — The vestal virgins of Grand Canary — 
Education — Morals — Trial by smoke — Punishment of 
crime — Dress — General character — Food — The Palma 
mode of dying — Dwellings and furniture — Inscription 
of Belmaco — Strength and agility — Reflections . . 67 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Gardens of Acclimatization — Eccentric trees and 
shrubs — The dragon tree — Orotava Villa — The private 
gardens of the Villa — The Castillo monument — The 
Villa Church de la Concepcion— The Dominican nuns 
and the Jesuit fathers — Periodical eruptions of Teide — 
Philosophy of life in the Villa 86 

CHAPTER VII. 

A tour round Tenerife — The boys and the bell-tower — The 
configuration of Tenerife — Barrancos — Zones of tern- 



CONTENTS. xiii 

PAGE 

perature — Realejo, Upper and Lower — Bencomo and 
Realejo — The Church of Rambla — I cod — The dragon 
tree— The sad citizen — Garachico — The story of 1706 
— The drunken prisoner — Sunset on the Peak — Play- 
ing the pedagogue . . . . .104 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A trait of Icod character — A fair morning — Pumice plains 
and lava beds — Gomera — On the Cahadas — A vol- 
caneta — The Peak at its toilette — Palm Sunday service 
—Garachico from above — A valley bivouac — Santiago 
— A severe mountain — Chia— Guia — Excitement in 
Guia — Hospitality of Guia — For and against country 
life ... 129 

CHAPTER IX. 

The hot south side of Tenerife — The Euphorbia — Josd's 
bragging — Adeje — Its Casa fuerte — Its population — 
Ascent to Chasna — Chasna of the clouds — The doctor 
and his daughter — A morning outlook — Flower cus- 
toms — The Eve of St. John — Granadilla — Its oranges 
— A sturdy gentleman — Granadilla' s church, club, and 
tobacco factories — Rio — Barrancos and cave dwellings 
— Flies — Arico — The ex-dockman — Fast life in Arico . 146 

CHAPTER X. 

A dilemma — Spanish generosity — The Barranco de Herque 
— Fasnea — The genial householder — A downpour — 
Escobonal and the Carretara — View of Guimar — The 
procession of Holy Thursday — Fanaticism — Candelaria 
— Rude burial — The camel — Santa Cruz — Strategy — 
Laguna — Orotava 167 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XI. PAGE 

Easter morning — A Guanche festival — Bencomo — The city 
of Laguna— Its history — The romance of Dacil and 
Castillo— The pestilence of Laguna — Ecclesiastical 
appropriations — Public festivities and mourning — The 
miraculous sweat — Some governors of the Canaries — 
Bishops, and Murga's injunctions — The expulsion of 
the Jesuits — Laguna as it is 184 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Laguna Churches — Social difficulties — Scheme for the 
emancipation of women — A working men's club — 
Ecclesiastical treasures — The library — The Professor 
and his pamphlet — Superstitions — The burning of 
Judas Iscariot — A diocese without a head . . . 200 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Anaga Hills — The woods of Mercedes — A dainty 
greensward — The Anaga edges and abysses — The 
" Cruz del Carmen " — The " Cruz de Afur" — Taganana 
woods and village — The " Cura " — A rustic beauty — A 
Guanche idyl — " El Roque de las Animas " — The monk 
and the nuns — Bencomo and Zebensin — Tenerifah 
economics — Return up the " Vuelta " .... 210 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Traditions about the Peak — First account of an ascent — 
Preparations for the climb — Our start — Glorious day — 
In the clouds — Above the clouds — El Pico de Teide — 
Stages of the ascent — The Retama Plain — Obsolete 



CONTENTS. xv 

PAGE 

hardships — At the foot of the pyramid — The Estancia 
— Bed-making and eating — Sunset — A restless night 
— On by moonlight — An unexpected meeting — The 
Rambleta — Sunrise — On the summit — In the crater — 
Hot and cold — Sulphur men— The ice cave — The 
descent 224 

CHAPTER XV. 

Palma from Tenerife — The weekly correo — The misery 
of it — A fair night at sea — Topography of Palma — 
Origin of its name — Guayanfanta — Conquest of Palma 
— The brave king of the Caldera — Alonso de Lugo's 
mean shift — Later history of Palma — Tenerife named 
by the people of Palma — The Bishop and the convent 
cake — Independence of Palma — The Vandewalle 
family, past and present 261 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Santa Cruz of Palma — A warm town — The mole — Steep 
streets — Palma women — Don Pedro and his wife — 
Palma fashions — Morning routine — The craterette of 
Santa Cruz — Architecture and industries of Santa Cruz 
— The Church of San Salvador — Altar machinery — 
Our Lady of the Snows — The cockpit — A series of 
fights — Palma's dependence on England — Local wines 
and tobacco — Weevils — Locusts — Legend of the Peak 
of Tenerife and the Caldera of Palma . . . . 270 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Preparations for a tour round Palma — Barranco de Galga — 
A red land — San Andre's— Los Sauces — Its merry mill 
— Barrancos de Herradura — Gallegos and Peleos — 
Awful roads — A beautiful country — We lose our way — 
The timid shepherd boys — A fairy fog — The kindly 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

proprietress and her hospitality — Tricias — Its elevation 
— Primitive quarters — A mill by cow-power — More 
barrancos — Bad water — Candelaria — Its ancient church 
— A gracious noonday rest — On the Caldera edge — In- 
describable panorama — The Caldera — Its colours and 
immensity — The Pico de Bejanao — Volcanoes and lava 
flows 290 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Los Llanos' 3 — Its fenda — Curious visitors and fellow 
guests — Argual — Paso and the Alcalde — Paso's 
school — The Caldera by the Barranco — Under the 
Pico de los Muchachos — The Caldera bed — The Cum- 
brecita Pass — Steep crags — Clouds brewing in the 
Caldera — The old and the new road over the Cordillera 
— The volcano of Tocade — We desert Don Pedro — A 
cruel voyage from Palma 310 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Historical summary — Bethencourt and his successors — Dis- 
putes about the Canaries between Spain and Portugal 
— Generous native princes — Rejon and the conquest of 
Grand Canary — Los Palmas — Ascension Day in the 
cathedral — Bones and copes — Paintings — The hospital 
— The English sailor among the Spaniards — Theatre 
and markets— Spanish justice — The harbour— Cloudy 
weather — The evening promenade — A funeral and 
burial . . 325 

CHAPTER XX. 



Characteristics of Grand Canary — The noisy sleeper — A 
sudden idea — Pancho and the Andalusian — The Cal- 



CONTENTS. xvii 

PAGE 

dera de Vandama — Tafira — Atalaya — Probable pedi- 
gree of the dwellers in Atalaya — Santa Brigida — San 
Mateo — Pancho's relations — The priest and his as- 
sistants — Across country — Guimar — A pretty prospect 
— Telde — Troglodytes and aristocrats — A brisk ride in 
the dark— S.S. Opobo— The last of the Peak . . 349 

APPENDIX 363 



LIST 1 OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

OLD CONVENT AND CHURCH TOWER IN SANTA CRUZ 

OF palm A ... ... ... ... Frontispiece 

MAP OF TENERIFE ... ... ... ... ... 7 

A WATER CARRIER ... ... ... ... 19 

THE PEAK: FROM A ROOF IN PUERTO ... ... 30 

A PICTURE IN PUERTO ... ... ... ... 34 

A BUSY DAY IN PUERTO ... ... ... ... 38 

VIEW FROM A GARDEN NEAR HUMBOLDT'S VILLA 41 

A GUANCHE SEPULCHRE ... ... ... 45 

AN ENGLISH RESIDENCE BY PUERTO ... ... 4 8 

A VILLA OF TENERIFE ... ... ... ... 5 2 

THE ISLAND OF SAN BORONDON ... ... ... 64 

FACSIMILES OF THE INSCRIPTIONS OVER THE CAVE OF 

BELMACO, IN THE ISLAND OF PALMA 82 

SCENE ON THE ROAD TO THE VILLA ... ... 87 

A DRAGON TREE ... ... ... ••• 9 2 

THE VILLA ... ... ... ... ••• IOI 

LOOKING WEST FROM PUERTO ... ... ... I08 



xx LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS. 



PAGE 

BALCONY IN SAN JUAN DE LA RAMBLA ... ... Il6 

ICOD AND THE PEAK ... ... ... ... 126 

THE PEAK IN MARCH: FROM ABOVE ICOD ... 1 36 

A CLUMP OF EUPHORBIA ... ... ... ... 148 

A TENERIFAN IN HIS MANTA ... ... ... I5 2 

A LAGUNA PORTAL ... ... ... ... ... 198 

A GOATHERD OF TENERIFE ... .... ... 229 

A BEGGAR OF TENERIFE ... ... ... ... 234 

THE PEAK FROM PUERTO : SHOWING THE TIGAYGA 

RIDGE... ... ... ... ... 237 

OUTLINE OF CHAHORA, AS SEEN FROM THE SUMMIT OF 

THE PEAK ... ... ... ... ... 260 

MAP OF PALMA ... ... ... ... ... 271 

MAP OF GRAND CANARY ... ... ... 333 



RIDES AND STUDIES IN THE 
CANARY ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The S.S. Niger — West Coast merchants — Santa Cruz from the 
sea — The Anaga Hills — The Mole — Nelson and July 25, 
1 797 — The churches of Santa Cruz — The workhouse — Street 
architecture and the " Postigos " — The "Alameda" — Emi- 
gration — Santa Cruz a Spanish foundation — Statuary in the 
Plaza — The defects of a cosmopolitan seaport. 

Our ship, the Niger, of the African Steamship 
Company, dropped anchor off Santa Cruz on the 
morning of Sunday, the 20th March. So many of 
our country folk had come on board at the last 
moment, in a scamper from the east winds and sleet 
of " dear old England," that throughout the voyage 
the vessel had carried a freight of human flesh much 
beyond her capacity. Some of us had in conse- 
quence been put, aft like stowaways. The Bay of 
Biscay had drenched us by bucketfuls in our nightly 
stumble and slide down the wet decks to these sad 
quarters, and the pitching was as if we had been in 
a swing at the mercy of lusty arms. At Madeira 

2 



2 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



certain pale invalids and knickerbockered tourists 
enlarged our circle, so that for the final two days of 
the eight from Liverpool to Tenerife people slept 
on the dining tables and under them, like the dregs 
of a debauch. For the Steamship Company this 
was admirable, but for us who were not interested 
in its dividends it was not so pleasant. Besides, the 
provisions had begun to fall off : there was not 
enough marmalade for the tenth day. Taking these 
various circumstances into account, it was joy to 
know that the voyage was at an end. The twen- 
tieth of March is a day on which, in the Catholic 
calendar, souls are released from the pains of Purga- 
tory. It is also the first day of Spring, according to 
Spanish reckoning. Thus our landing on Spanish 
and Catholic soil was doubly auspicious. 

We parted with the half-dozen passengers whom 
we left on the Niger to proceed to Sierra Leone and 
the West Coast, much as one might part with an 
explorer bound for the North Pole. Over brandies 
and sodas these heroes of commerce had told us of 
the heat, ennui, and flavour of doom that marked 
their life at the lonely trading stations in the 
mangrove swamps of the wide river mouths. King 
Chance rules in Benin during the wet season as 
grimly as when he held court in Paris, with 
Robespierre for his prime puppet. 

These merchants were married. Their wives 
lived in England, and made them welcome for a 
couple of months every alternate year. One gentle- 
man, bolder or more pitiless than the rest, was, this 
trip, accompanied by his wife : it was an experiment. 



SANTA CRUZ. 



3 



Six weeks after- I left the Niger her death was in 
the papers. 

Is it not ghastly ? Black men and women, gold 
dust, elephants' teeth, leopard skins, blue skies, 
palm-trees, and freedom from the restraints of con- 
vention, cannot give charm to these cruel shores, 
which force white men to solace themselves with 
the old hectic and deluding cordial, " Let us eat, 
drink, and be merry ; for to-morrow we die ! " 

From the water Santa Cruz has the gay air of a 
Levantine city. Its bulk of white houses with flat 
roofs, the two dark campaniles of its principal 
churches, the pale pink or ochre bodies and yet 
brighter turrets of mercantile and municipal buildings, 
the flutter of flags, and the heavy curl of surf on its 
sandy beach, give it a lively look. But the town is 
nothing to its surroundings. Imagine a mass of 
pointed and serrated mountains hedging it close on 
one side, and the long backbone of Tenerife, springing 
behind the town from these chaotic hills, and rising 
gradually in the opposite direction until, thirty miles 
away, it culminates in the Peak itself, 12,180 feet 
above the sea : you may then have an idea of the mere 
land frame of Santa Cruz. 

The Anaga hills, near our anchorage, drop into 
the sea by stern red precipices. Their summits, 
winningly fantastic, two and three thousand feet 
high, are crested with laurels and heaths, the 
leafage of which is wonderfully clear against the blue 
background of sky. For the rest, there are many 
palm trees among the houses of the city, and beyond 
it, where the land swells to the watershed, are fields 



4 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



of barley, and patches of the cochineal cactus. 
These last, decked in their white rags, are curiously 
suggestive of extensive laundry grounds. 

One word, however, about the Peak. In Santa 
Cruz it is little more than a tradition. The but- 
tresses of the Canadas, or old crater, eight or nine 
thousand feet from the level, and upon which the 
Peak proper is built as a precise pyramid, stand like 
a distant wall between the capital and the mountain 
top. Thanks to this foreshortening, only enlight- 
ened eyes can identify a tiny purple pimple, peering 
over the great wall, as the Teide long believed to be 
the highest elevation in the world. 

After eight days at sea, some of us were hasty in 
our efforts to land on Tenerife. But the health 
officer had first to certify that we were bringing no 
infectious disease to this little island which has 
suffered so many scourges of various kinds since it 
came into civilised history. " Patience ! " therefore, 
was the word. Indeed, this was a plea to which 
we soon got habituated. If the dinner came not for 
an hour or two after it was ordered, " Patience, 
senor," murmured the landlord. If the horse I had 
engaged for a week's riding tour appeared as an 
animated sheaf of bones, the livery man remarked 
that with " patience " the " beast would improve in 
looks." If, in a clumsy attempt to eat a prickly pear, 
I ran four or five spines into my thumb, and groaned 
while trying to extract them, a swarthy native was 
sure to be near to assure me that with " patience " 
the wound would fester comfortably and allow the 
venomous points to expel themselves. And when 



NELSON AND SANTA CRUZ. 



5 



the southern husband, in a rare moment of petulance, 
complains of the screaming of his babe, ten to one 
the mother will whisper " Patience," and remind the 
father that by and by the squaller will become a man. 

About three hundred years ago, when the popula- 
lation of Santa Cruz was under a thousand, the 
inhabitants began to build a mole for the protection 
of their harbour. This mole is still unfinished. A 
long line of gigantic cubes of concrete are waiting to 
be hurled pell-mell into the sea for the due continu- 
ance of the work ; but it is impossible to say how 
many years they have thus been waiting, or when 
the mole will be completed. " Patience ! " however. 

This thick fragment of a pier, with the lighthouse 
upon it, has strong interest for an Englishman. It 
was while he was standing on it during the night of 
the 24th July, 1797, that a brilliant shot from a 
field-piece under the alameda, about two hundred 
yards distant, carried off Nelson's right arm, killed 
Bowen, the captain of the Terpsichore, wounded the 
captain of the Seahorse and two seconds in command, 
and killed a score of others. We had already cap- 
tured the mole, but had been forced to abandon it. 
It was doubtful if Trowbridge and his thousand men 
had succeeded in their endeavour to row upon the 
shore, march into the town, and bring the Governor- 
General to a surrender. In this strait Nelson him- 
self came into the strife, just in time for the cannon 
shot which, in the words of the Spanish rhymer — 

" Mate a Bowen atrevido, 
A Nelson le quite nn brazo, 
A veinte y dos de un balazo 
Muertos, al ingles vencido," 

..liHik 



6 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



The citizens of Santa Cruz are proud of the 
memory of this battle, and with good reason. 
Nelson was not accustomed to be beaten. His tone 
in demanding the Philippine treasure-ship, Principe 
dc Asturias, which was the ostensible cause of his 
coming to Tenerife, was, therefore, high-handed, 
not to say insolent. Trowbridge, when he had 
safely got through the surf in the teeth of the shore 
guns, and brought his small body of men into the 
heart of the city, was even more peremptory than 
Nelson. His force had got divided, so that he found 
himself in the Plaza, face to face with the castle and 
its guns, with only about 340 men around him. 
Nelson's co-operation had failed. The rest of his 
troops were isolated elsewhere in the city. Never- 
theless, says the Spanish historian, " in spite of this 
false position, Trowbridge had the hardihood to send 
a sergeant to the castle, demanding its surrender, and 
threatening else to burn the town." Later, when 
the reunited British force had taken shelter in the 
convent of San Domingo, and Nelson's second 
attempt to relieve him had been defeated, Trow- 
bridge altered his tone. He sent to the Spanish 
general to say that he did not wish to injure the 
town, but that he was determined to have the bul- 
lion of the Manila ship. Such persistence, in such 
a situation, was heroic. But when the Governor, 
in reply, threatened at once to besiege the convent, 
and to give no quarter, our sturdy Trowbridge re- 
turned to his right senses. A flag of truce ended 
the engagement. The 675 survivors of the original 
1,000 assailants marched with all honours of war 



NELSON'S LETTER. 7 

through the Plaza, between the French and Spanish 
soldiery of the defence, and embarked for their ships. 
It is worth mention that the victors, as courteous 
after as they were brave and intelligent during the 
battle, gave our men a breakfast before allowing 
them to re-embark. 1 




II 'a I leer &• Boutall sc 



Tenerife : Extreme dimensions, 60 miles by 30. 



1 Nelson's letter to the Governor shows how he appreciated 
tins civility : 

''Theseus,////)/ 26, 1797. 
" Sir, — I cannot quit this island without thanking your Ex- 
cellency most sincerely for your extreme kindness to me, for 
your humanity in regard to our dead and wounded in your 
power and under your care, and for your generosity towards all 



3 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



The total number of men engaged in the defence of 
Santa Cruz was only 1,669. Trowbridge estimated 
them at 8,000, and English historians have held to 
his estimate. But he did not know that, by a trick of 
war, the same troops were being marched backwards 
and forwards, like pantomime dummies, to make an 
effective show. 

It is the fashion with visitors to decry Santa Cruz. 
They use it as a stepping-stone to the other side of the 
island, and lament when they are obliged to return 
to it. This is hard on the town, which is at least 
worth a leisurely inspection. Its two large churches 
are full of the heavy gilded carving and spiral 
wooden pillars of which the Spaniards are so fond. 
Their canvasses, too, are characteristic. Either the 
figures portrayed are grotesquely out of drawing, or 
the colours have vanished. The subject of Purgatory, 
with the elect presided over by Popes and Jesuits, 
is treated as coarsely in Santa Cruz as in every 
little village church throughout the islands. When 
one has looked on Nelson's flags, in a chapel of the> 
cathedral, and admired the ingenious carved work of 
a certain Spaniard who died in 1743, leaving this as 
his monument, the real interest of the building is 
exhausted. The flags are in elongated cases, under 
lock and key, and hung on the wall high out of 
reach. This was deemed essential after the rude 

who are disembarked. I will not fail to inform my sovereign 
of this, and I look forward to an opportunity when I may 
personally assure your Excellency how much I am your Ex- 
cellency's most obedient and humble servant, 

" Horatio Nelson." 



THE WORKHOUSE. 



9 



theft of them, once upon a time, by a British mid- 
shipman, who thought his and his country's honour 
depended on their recovery. 

The workhouse of Santa Cruz seemed to me 
almost an ideal place for the long death of old age. 
It was far from depressing. The good sister who 
led me through its airy, clean, whitewashed corri- 
dors and wards laughed cheerfully all the while. I 
found fifty well-knit boys busy with slates and 
pencils and problems of long division. They rose 
to their feet with pleased alacrity when we appeared, 
and enjoyed the diversion. From the boys we went 
to the girls. They were of ages from eight or nine 
to fifteen, and some of them gave promise of great 
beauty. Dark eyes that go to the heart are common 
in Spain; but here, among these well-bred orphaned 
girls, were also complexions worthy of England, as 
well as eyes lucid with sweet expression. The girls 
were variously employed ; some embroidering, some 
cutting paper patterns for the decoration of church 
statuary, or devising bouquets of paper roses and 
geraniums, for use in this land teeming with natural 
flowers. In this democratic establishment there was 
work for all who could work. Even the crones, poor 
ugly old creatures, found pastime in picking corn 
from a mammoth heap in the midst of their apart- 
ment, and they chattered vociferously over their 
labour. For the men there was bootmaking, carpen- 
tering, tailoring, &c. None were degraded to the 
task, fit only for Bridewells, of meddling with oakum. 
We discovered seven little urchins making their 
midday meal, in truly national style, round one big 



IO 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



bowl of gofio. They paused with uplifted spoons at the 
sight of us, but soon resumed their repast. Thus, 
down the scale, we arrived at the nursery, where a 
couple of young mothers began to tidy their babes, 
but a few weeks old, for our entertainment. " That 
one is blacker than it ought to be," remarked the 
sister, with a shake of the head, to one of the 
mothers. But we did not tarry to listen to the 
voluble explanations which the girl offered on behalf 
of the child and its parentage. Lastly, we went 
into the patio or inner courtyard of the building — a 
garden full of flowers, with palms, bananas, and 
orange trees interlaced between the sky and the 
earth. Here the veterans of the workhouse strolled 
and sunned themselves, free from anxiety. I daresay 
the southern sun has something to do with it ; but 
the contrast between this workhouse in a colony of 
Spain, and the prison-houses to which in England 
our unfortunate paupers are consigned, was startling. 

The streets of Santa Cruz, though not elegant, 
are by their narrowness adapted for the shade one 
sighs for under a tropical sun. They are uneven 
and cobbled, and to drive through them is torture. 
The houses are lofty, with carven balconies, doors, 
and window shutters, painted green, with no small 
degree of individuality. Some of the older buildings 
on the Marina are palatial in their woodwork — 
especially the consular houses.. From the patio of 
palms and orange and lemon trees, with a fountain 
in their midst, one looks up broad heavy staircases 
with twisted banisters at dainty supports with 
elaborate capitals and embossed roofs that would 



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 



1 1 



have done credit to Nuremberg in its best days. 
Piazzi Smyth reproaches the Canarians because 
their " liliputian panelling " is of American deal, 
instead of the tougher olive or walnut wood. Of 
course the labour of carving olive timber as they 
have carved the deal would have been greater ; but 
the work ought surely to be judged only according 
to its pretensions. It assumes to be ornamental, 
and it is ornamental. It does not assume to be high 
art, and v therefore it merits no blame because it is 
not high art. 

These wooden window shutters play an important 
part in the domestic life of the Canarians. They 
keep the house cool by the exclusion of light and 
heat : but they also bring the ladies of the house 
into immediate though delicate association with their 
friends and acquaintance outside. The shutters are 
invariably pierced at the base by a small movable 
trap which goes outwards on hinges ; and with this 
postigo pressed open more or less wide by their 
heads, the women pass hours of the day looking 
forth into the street, their powdered cheeks level 
with the cheeks of the pedestrian. At first it is a 
little embarrassing to walk down one of these long, 
close, empty streets between a file of faces, the black 
eyes of which are merciless and unswerving in their 
concentrated scrutiny. But, after a time, one per- 
ceives that it is a gracious custom whereby a stranger 
may at small cost see the pretty faces of the town in 
very agreeable contiguity, and contrast the one with 
the other as easily as if they were photographs in a 
shop window. 



12 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



The alameda (from alamo, a poplar — the tree 
favoured in the Peninsular for these public places) of 
Santa Cruz is a remarkable little tract of forestry in 
the middle of the town. Here the botanist may 
try his erudition with almost certain discomfiture. 
Among date palms and royal palms he will find 
laurels as tall as a house, and many a plant indi- 
genous to the tropics, but quite at home* in this dry, 
warm air, which knows hardly anything of a tem- 
perature below 50 Fahrenheit. On the hottest of 
days one may breathe at ease under this thick 
foliage, or even indulge in a paddle in the fountains 
of the alameda, like a certain maid whom I caught 
knee-deep in the water, whiffing a cigarette. 

The familiarity gained by the Canarians with such 
tropical vegetation as they see in the alamedas must 
in some measure make the expatriation that is so 
common here less irksome and harsh. We landed 
on the mole at a time when several score of agricul- 
turists and their families were embarking on an 
emigrant ship bound for Venezuela. The mother 
country acts wisely in giving her colonists every 
facility for dispersion over her own colonies. The 
advantages of Porto Rico, Venezuela, and Cuba, 
with assisted passages and so forth, are broadly 
placarded in Tenerife ; and yearly the deportation 
from the Canaries is large. People marry so young 
here, and the women are so prolific, that, considering 
the limited area of the archipelago (about 3,300 
square miles), there is no resource but emigration. 
Prior to the invasion of Spain, the old inhabitants 
were posed with the same difficulty. In Lanzarote, 



GUANCHE NOMENCLATURE. 



for example, a law was passed, sentencing to death 
all children of a family except the first-born. But 
this uncommon regulation was soon afterwards ren- 
dered unnecessary by a pestilence which almost 
depopulated the island. It may not be generally 
known that the first civilizers of Florida were 
Canarians, and the city of St. Augustine in that 
state, which claims to be the oldest European settle- 
ment of the United States, was founded in the six- 
teenth century by a contingent of seventy families 
from Santa Cruz. 

But it is early to begin sketching the past history 
of the Canaries. This subject is so gigantic in pro- 
portion to the smallness of the islands and their 
distance from the great centres of civilization in past 
ages, that it demands very careful and precise 
"boiling down" to the degree at which it may 
interest and adequately instruct without being tedious 
or pedantic. 

Enough if for the present I remind my readers 
that Santa Cruz is a Spanish foundation in the midst 
of the other towns and villages which mostly existed 
when the Guanches held Tenerife. Orotava, Guimar, 
Teide, Icod, Taganana are all immediate derivations 
from the dead Guanche tongue. Santa Cruz, on the 
other hand, merely marks the place where Alonso de 
Lugo, the conqueror of the island, first set foot in 
Tenerife, holding a great cross of wood in his arms. 
Like other disseminators of European customs 
among peoples who are so far barbarians that they 
have not yet succeeded in discovering gunpowder and 
the art of printing, De Lugo was, above all things, 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



bent on Christianizing the Guanches. And so the 
cross was set*in the ground, the chaplains said mass 
in the open air, surrounded by the thousand grim 
warriors in armour, who had come from slaying the 
Moors in Granada to a new kind of blood-shedding, 
and the place was christened Santa Cruz, and 
annexed to the domains of their Majesties of Spain. 

In the Plaza of Santa Cruz is a stately marble 
obelisk which in its own way is pathetic. In the 
centre of it is a representation of the Virgin of 
Candelaria, a village on the southern coast of Ten- 
erife ; and this figure is flanked by four marble 
survivals of the Guanche kings, clad in skins, and 
bearing their royal sceptre — the thigh-bone of Tinerfe, 
that Homeric and legendary first monarch of the 
whole island. I hope I may be able to show that 
the Guanches, who have been exterminated, were a 
people of many virtues and much nobility. As for 
the Virgin of Candelaria, that potent legend, with 
all its influence over the minds of many generations 
of island Catholics, may tell its own tale in due 
course. 

But it is now time to leave Santa Cruz. It is 
a city of meagre entertainment after all, and of 
very mixed blood. Ships of many nations call here 
week by week, and the sight of tipsy tars and brawl- 
ing travellers does not work in the cause of virtue 
upon the youth of cosmopolitan seaports like this. 
In back streets I was confronted with staring sign- 
boards inviting the stranger, in bad English, to enter, 
drink rum, and have a good time. There are two 
hotels, at least, where English is nearly as much the 



YOUNG BLOODS. 



15 



mother tongue as Spanish ; and each advertises its 
rivalry to the other by conjuring me to believe that 
it is the better, and that nowhere else in the town is 
English spoken. The Anglo-mania has touched 
Santa Cruz. Pale ale in the familiar bottles is an 
article of common use here. And oh, horribile dictu ! 
I cannot go into my hotel without passing two or 
three Spanish young men in large check coats and 
trousers, an attitude of supreme impertinence, their 
hats cocked on one side, and the crook of their 
walking canes resting on their molars. These young 
gentlemen think it " chic" to behave as they imagine 
the English behave ; and so they idle away the hours 
in this way, and ogle everything female that comes 
under their gaze. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Grand Hotel and Sanatorium of Orotava — Commercial 
decay of the islands— An early ride — Roads and roadside 
scenes — The ungallant driver— Laguna — The north side 
of Tenerife — Matanza — Bencomo, the King of Taoro — 
Victoria — The Valley of Orotava, and Humboldt's praise 
of it— The Peak. 

Since the opening of the English Sanatorium on the 
northern side of the island, English faces are com- 
mon objects along the road which joins Orotava and 
Santa Cruz. Indeed, the islanders think their for- 
tunes are to be made by the exodus hither year after 
year of an increasing number of strangers with their 
pockets full of money. A few years ago the mere 
name of " invalid " made a Spaniard of Tenerife 
shiver and turn away. He imagined that lung 
disease, for instance, was contagious ; so that, how- 
ever poor he might be, he would not dream of letting 
an empty house to a person affected with phthisis. 
The same reason makes it customary to hide the 
fact when a native is in a decline. 

I do not know how the change has been wrought, 
but wrought it has been. For a long time European 
physicians have praised the air of the Canaries as 
curative, ne plus ultra,) for certain maladies* Its dry* 



BAD TRADE. 



17 



ness is extraordinary. The average annual rainfall 
is under fifteen inches. The average winter tem- 
perature on the coast is 63*8°. It was whispered 
that if only some millionaire could get from the 
Spanish Government a concession of the island of 
Tenerife, he might, by judicious outlay, turn it into 
a health ground for Europe and the West Coast of 
Africa, such as the world would be grateful for. But 
the very extravagance of such a reputation seems 
to have been fatal to its acceptance. Besides, of 
what use was this admirable climate to the ordinary 
health-seeker if there were no hotels to offer him the 
comforts on which, equally with the climate, his 
health depended ? In a common wayside vcnta 
he might get a truckle-bed, an oily diet of little 
variety, and the companionship of innumerable 
fleas ; but, not unwisely, he preferred to leave 
Tenerife to itself rather than accept these certain 
evils as a part of his cure. 

A year or two ago, however, a company of Spanish 
nobility and others put their heads together. Bad times 
had come upon Tenerife, no less than upon England. 
Cochineal, of which, in i860, more than a million 
pounds weight had gone from the islands to Europe, 
at a price of about a dollar a pound, had fallen before 
the modern invention of aniline dyes. The demand 
had become trifling, and the price had diminished to 
a quarter of a dollar. It was a severe blow to culti- 
vators, many of whom at once gave up all hopes of 
the affluence they had expected. Later, the wines, 
which of old, before the ravage of the oidium disease, 
had produced the most excellent Malvasia, were 

3 



iS 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



studied with renewed interest. Tobacco also was 
planted largely where the cochineal cactus had 
formerly held the ground. By these means, pros- 
perity might be coaxed back to the islands, which no 
longer merited the name of " Fortunate." Yet 
another opening* for capitalists was suggested. Why 
should not Tenerife bid for a few of the thousands 
who annually go from the north to the south, in terror 
of the winter ? Why, indeed, with such claims as 
hers ? 

It has eventuated in the Orotava Grand Hotel — 
Sanatorium and health resort — a speculation in the 
interest of humanity, for the profit of the various 
marquises and counts who have subscribed the 
capital for its institution. Thanks to the Sanatorium, 
the people in the north-east of Tenerife are already 
familiarized with the sight of Englishmen. They 
see them by carriage-loads, or galloping themselves 
into health, pursued by swarms of flies. Their 
energy is a marvel to them. Their evident wealth 
is an endless subject of conversation and envy to 
them. But the wisest and best-cultured of them 
are beginning to fear that in course of time they may 
have to pray for deliverance from them, even as they 
seek deliverance from the locusts when a south-east 
wind brings a ravening scourge of them upon the 
land. 

I took the early mail coach from Santa Cruz 
to Orotava, and sat by its coarse but hearty driver. 
The tender colour of the Oriental neighbourhood of 
the capital soon after dawn, the placid ocean, with 
the outline of Grand Canary, forty-five miles distant, 



A f WINDING HIGHWA Y. 



19 



and the warm fresh air, were alike exhilarating. But 
the Anaga hills are the supreme beauty of Santa 
Cruz. Their greenery on this spring morning was 
delicious, and their tortured summits, connected one 
with another by narrow edges that piqued the fancy, 
made my feet itch to be upon them. 

The distance from Santa Cruz to Orotava is about 
twenty-five miles. In the first five miles we rise 
nearly 2,000 feet, to the ancient capital of Tenerife, 
the city of Laguna. Never was there a more erratic 
road. We take long sweeping curves to the right, 
and then corresponding curves to the left. Of course 
this is for the good of the horses ; but here methinks 
the authorities have exceeded discretion. As en- 
gineering work, however, these roads of the first 
class in the Canaries are beyond praise. The 
Romans could not have made them better. But at 
present Tenerife is girdled hardly 
more than a third by the first 
class roads. The remaining 
tracks are infamous ; and years 
will elapse before the tourist can 
order his carriage to drive round 
the Peak as if it were the Acro- 
polis of Athens. 

The scenes on the road outside 
Santa Cruz are lively and in- 
teresting. We meet files of 
women of the most robust build, 
tripping lightly down the incline, 
with eggs, poultry, vegetables, and fruit on their 
heads* They move with their arms akimbo, laugh- 




120 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



ing and joking, so that their fine, white teeth are 
for ever flashing across their dusky skins. There 
are also mules and mule-carts laden with barrels of 
wine of country pressing, or sacks of charcoal, cases 
of bananas for shipment to England, and the like. 
Here and there we pass a district customs' house. 
The Canaries are a free port for strangers, but, in- 
ternally, there is a universal octroi. Thus, for every 
fowl taken into Santa Cruz, the market woman pays 
about 2;jd., and the goatherd who drives his flock 
from door to door, milking them according to the 
demand, pays a little more than a halfpenny a day 
for every goat thus employed. 

As I have said, the coachman was a rough fellow. 
He and I got to be good friends ere I left the island : 
but his conduct towards his countrywomen was so 
unchivalrous on this March morning, that I did not 
at first think well of him. He flicked at their stout 
brown calves with his long whip, and made some of 
them dance their eggs into jeopardy. He did it all 
in the merriest humour, however, and when his com- 
pliments were of the grossest they were met with 
unvarying smiles or amiable retorts. But soon the 
horses exacted his attention in our pull up to the 
level of Laguna. " Go on, little boy ! " " On, white 
horse ! " " On post ! " Thus he stimulated his 
ragged steeds to do their best. The bony animals 
were tied to our old green coach with bits of rope that 
threatened momentarily to break ; but they brought 
us over our difficulties in praiseworthy style. 

Of the mouldering, sombre old city of Laguna, 
than which there is none more poetical in the islands, 



THE OROTAVA ROAD. 



21 



I shall have something to say by and by. It kindles 
the imagination. It resembles a white-haired old 
man who has lived safely through a stormy youth 
and a vigorous and influential prime, but who is now 
content to glide down to oblivion and decay, sooth- 
ing his decline with harmless babble about the red 
days he has seen, and the history he flatters himself 
he has helped to make. But it is saturated with that 
" worst symptom a town can have " — silence. 

From Laguna to Orotava is about twenty miles, 
or four hours going in the coach. We are now 
on the north side of the island. The sunlit blue 
of the sea is below us, at the base of the broad slopes 
which fall to the coast from the high road. These 
slopes are assiduously cultivated, for this is the 
richest part of the island. Fields of maize, lupins, 
potatoes, vineyards, brakes of fig-trees, orchards, 
groves of orange trees, tufts of bananas, cover the 
land, with the fullest suggestion of opulence and 
fertility. We pass groups and avenues of superb 
palm trees, standing among the grain, or leading to 
the villas which dot this divine stretch of country. 
Thus the villages of Tacoronte and Sauzal are left 
behind, and near noon we halt at the inn of Matanza, 
sensibly browned by the sun, and already conscious 
that the flies are likely to prove a serious pest in this 
Garden of the Hesperides. 

In all Tenerife there is no better country inn than 
that, or rather those (for there are a rival pair of 
them), at Matanza. The hostess of the one I favoured 
was buxom and comely, and she .had learnt to a nicety 
how to fracture the shell in which the common Eng- 



22 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



lishman thinks fit to ensconce himself. None but the 
stiffest of necks could stay unbent before her hospit- 
able endeavours, and her sweet if flattering com- 
miserations with the wayfarer on the hard luck that 
has compelled him to battle with heat, flies, and 
dust on that particular day. Her smartness, too, 
was a pattern for all Spain ; though this was no 
doubt due to the exigencies of the mail, and its 
assumed punctuality in leaving when the half-hour for 
luncheon had expired. Ere I was well settled in my 
chair the ragout of eggs and meat and broth, which 
stands in Tenerife for a soup de pays, was smoking 
before me ; and beefsteaks, cutlets of kid, chickens, 
dukes (biscuits and other sugary confections), and 
fruit of bananas, figs, oranges, and apples succeeded 
each other like the carriages of a train. " Ah ! the 
dear English ! " she muttered, while bustling about 
with dishes and bottles ; and she carried her affection 
for us so far as to attack and rout the bevy of bare- 
legged beggar boys and girls and old crones who kept 
up a tiresome clamour for coppers at the window of 
the inn. 

Matanza is the Spanish for " slaughter." The vil- 
lage and its little church with a lozenge-shaped tower, 
under the lee of some high pine-clad bluffs facing 
the Atlantic, marks the site where Alonso de Lugo 
and his first body of invading Spaniards were brought 
to a pitiful plight. They supposed that they had but 
to show themselves to the Guanches and to Ben- 
como the king of Taoro and prince of the first Guan- 
ches, to ensure a victory and an immediate surrender 
of the island. It was far otherwise. Here at Matanza 



THE BATTLE OF MATANZA. 



the Guanches attacked the Spaniards, and put no 
fewer than nine hundred hors de combat. The re- 
maining handful fled with all speed back to the coast 
and the wooden cross which had been set in the 
ground, as a place of sanctuary. It was here that 
the Spaniards first learnt that the Guanches were as 
powerful individually as the Canarians of Grand 
Canary, of which island Lugo had recently completed 
the conquest. Certain armoured crossbowmen of 
Spain plied their bows from an eminence so as to 
annoy the Guanches. Their position was unassail- 
able. What could the Guanches do ? This : they 
deliberately undermined the rock itself, so that in a 
short time it collapsed, crossbowmen and all. 

It was a famous victory, and had Bencomo, the 
king, followed it up by a pursuit of the remnant of 
the Spaniards, he might have postponed the conquest 
of Tenerife until the sixteenth century. But this 
monarch was not only unwilling to harass a beaten 
foe : he pitied the very prisoners he had taken, and 
let them go to swell the broken forces at Santa Cruz. 
Not that he was wholly of a mild and gentle disposi- 
tion. His indignation was prodigious when, on the 
eve of the invasion, a native seer dared to prophesy 
misfortunes for his country. " I swear by the tower- 
ing Peak of Teide, by the blood of Tinerfe, by the 
heavens with all their stars, and by the sun now 
shining on the other world (it was night) — by these 
I swear that never will I thus be cast down. Thou 
a prophet, with knowledge of the future ! Dost thou, 
villain, liar, fool, and madman, dare thus to mock at 
me ? . . . Hang him up without loss of a moment ! " 



24 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



When the luckless augur was swaying in his death 
agonies from the bough of the tree, Bencomo, uncon- 
sciously plagiarising from the Scriptures, taunted him 
with his inability to foretell his own dismal ending. 
Again, when later the " white wings " of the Spanish 
ships appeared, and the herald of Spain presented 
himself before the king with three demands — Peace ; 
the acceptance by the Guanches of Christianity ; and 
the acknowledgment of King Ferdinand of Spain for 
their sovereign lord — Bencomo treated the two first 
proposals with bland indifference, but flew into a 
royal rage about the third demand. " We are 
not so weak that we are unable to defend ourselves. 
I was born a king, and a king I mean to die, in 
defence of my honour, my country, and my sub- 
jects." 

Matanza was the first battle between invaders and 
invaded. Here, among the barley and potatoes and 
vines, relics of the fight of 1495 are still upturned 
from the reddish earth — bones, fragments of jerkins, 
helmets, spurs, and weapons. 

Leaving this place of slaughter, we now drive 
through the villages of Victoria (where the Spaniards 
subsequently atoned for Matanza by a bloody mas- 
sacre of Guanches) and Santa Ursula, gradually 
descending from the high ground of Laguna. The 
palms thicken, and the country gets more and more 
fertile. We are nearing the vale of Orotava — the 
most beautiful valley in the world, said Humboldt : 
and also approaching the base of the Peak. 

Soon after traversing Santa Ursula, a deep ravine 
is crossed by a strong lava bridge, and then we mount 



THE VALLEY OF OROTAVA. 



25 



the intervening shoulder of mountain, and have Oro- 
tava at our feet. 

This landscape, like so many others, does not, I 
think, captivate fully at first. It were better for 
Orotava had Humboldt never given it such respon- 
sible praise. One looks for such transcendent beauty, 
and the fancy is heated to such a pitch of expecta- 
tion, that nothing less than Eden could satisfy. 
Besides, in a valley so laboriously cultivated as 
Orotava, the colours which help so much to beautify 
it vary greatly according to the season. In April 
the barley is ripe, and, amid the green vines, palm, and 
fig trees, the bronzed hue of autumn shows with 
brilliant effect. A month later, when the sun has 
gained in heat, and the fields are already nude and 
grey, the charm is distinctly lessened. And in mid- 
summer, when the very springs which in winter and 
March and April send full currents down to the 
gardens in the valley, are almost dried up, and a 
coat of dust covers even the leaves of the trees — 
then a man must take with him a light heart if he is 
to see aught extraordinary in Orotava, in spite of its 
blossoms, its surrounding hills, its blue sea breaking 
in high surf upon the shore, and its supreme guardian, 
the Peak. 

I saw Orotava at its best. The valley is really an 
amphitheatre, about ten miles long by six from the 
lip of the bowl to the Atlantic bordering its arena. 
Where the sea touches the centre of the so-called 
valley, is the red and white town of Port Orotava, 
or Puerto, as it is known locally. Two miles higher, 
and joined with Puerto by a road hung with blossom- 



26 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



ing trees, and bushes of geraniums, heliotrope, jas- 
min, and red roses, is the city of Orotava, or the 
Villa, an imposing coterie of tall buildings, from the 
midst of which the dome of its large parochial church 
glints in the sunlight. Beyond Orotava, on all 
sides, are villages and country houses, thickset in 
verdure, though the nature of the verdure depends, 
of course, upon the zone of vegetation which their 
respective height above the sea-level procures for 
them. Thus the highest of these villages, while we 
look upon the valley from our surroundings of 
flowering geraniums, bananas, and prickly pear, is 
in a wood of great chestnut trees, the purple hue of 
which tells us more easily than the naked eye that 
they have not yet unfurled a single leaf. In one part 
of the valley all is florid and tropical ; in another 
we are, as it were, in Norway or Sweden ; and both 
are visible at the same time. 

But though the various greens of this Garden of 
the Hesperides are sufficiently pleasing for a con- 
noisseur of Nature's colours, without the Peak, 
Orotava would have no claim to be called magnifi- 
cent. The mountains which gird the valley are from 
six to seven thousand feet high. When I saw them 
first from Santa Ursula they were in black shadow ; 
indeed their summits were cloaked in the darkest of 
clouds. But over these clouds, and glowing effulgent 
against a zenith of intense blue sky, stood the Peak 
— like a superhuman guardian, suspended above the 
valley between earth and heaven. It stood as a vast 
pyramid of snow, with glistening lines upon it where 
runlets of snow water were melting down to the hot 



THE PEAK FROM OROTAVA. 



27 



valley at its base. The Peak of Tenerife is 12,180 
feet above the sea, according to Humboldt's measure- 
ment. As the cloud stratum which, with remark- 
able obstinacy, forms almost daily at nine or ten 
o'clock round its great body, hangs at an elevation 
not exceeding five thousand feet above the level, the 
mountain is then invisible from Orotava. At such 
times the whole valley seems to be living in the 
gloom precedent to a violent thunderstorm. But by 
climbing the hills sufficiently high, or getting an out- 
side view of the valley, the Peak itself is seen pre- 
siding over valley, clouds, and sea alike. This is 
one of those memorable sights that the mind holds 
fast to as a pure incomparable pleasure. Recalling 
it, one is then willing enough to justify Humboldt 
for his bold commendation of the valley of Orotava. 



CHAPTER III. 



Sweet idling in Puerto —Trivial excitements of a health resort 
— Puerto as it is and as it was — The old wine trade — Irish 
monuments in the Church — Puerto's harbour — La Paz — A 
Guanche sepulchre — Guanche skulls — A southern villa— 
The cochineal insect — Sugar, tobacco, and wine — The ruin 
of 1826. 

Two or three days' experience of life in Puerto makes 
one feel that if change is good in proportion to its 
completeness, this is a royal health resort. 

The eye can look nowhere without being charmed. 
The sorriest palm tree among the chimney pots of 
the town seems as happy in its surroundings as if it 
were one of a grove in a desert oasis. The brilliant 
green of the young vines and barley a stone's throw 
from my window is not less beautiful than the olive 
of the distant country, where it swells upwards to 
the dark pine forests on the slopes, 5,000 feet above 
Puerto ; nor the deep clear blue of the Atlantic, where 
it beats into surf against the black scoriated strand of 
the town, than the pure azure of the heavens above 
the white crest of Teide. 

All is cheerful — from the rhythmical boom of the 
sea-surge to the singing of the birds in the adjacent 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 



3i 



magnolias and orange trees, the singing of men in 
the streets, and the tinkle of the bells of the goats as 
they browse towards their upland pasture grounds. 

It is warm, but not too warm. During the mid- 
day heat, one may lounge the hours away under the 
shade of the palms, in an atmosphere sweet with 
heliotrope and orange blossom, and cooled by the 
splash of the water in the marble fountains among 
the trees. 

By and by the shadows slide fast to the west. The 
day dies briefly in a wrack of blood-red vapour. 
The stars hurry forth their light. The little green 
frogs in the water tanks break into loud amorous 
babble. The clouds lift from the loins of the Peak, 
and the great cone of glowing snow shines down on 
the valley with a lustre that mocks the ray of the 
baby moon, rising feebly behind it. 

But voluptuousness and inertia do not here rule 
with absolute despotism. There is a measure of 
what is called " life," even at this young health 
resort. One day, for instance, with the early cup of 
coffee, news comes of the death of your neighbour. 
It is not unexpected, of course. Here nothing is unex- 
pected. But, within the next twenty-four hours, the 
poor fellow is buried and nearly forgotten. It was a 
little disturbing to have the men with the black 
coffin on their shoulders, cigarettes in their mouths, 
and a bucket of quicklime in their hands come into 
your room by mistake. Yet even this gives occasion 
for some dry humour before the week is out. Again, 
it made one wince for the moment, when, during the 
funeral service in the small whitewashed cemetery 



33 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



for those " outside the Church," full of big scarlet 
geranium bushes, and shadowed by tall date palms, 
a lavender-coloured dog, like a wolf-hound, found his 
way into the midst of the tearless throng of strangers 
at the grave of their comrade who has gone into the 
strangest of all strange places, and sniffed unctuously 
at the ill-made coffin ere he was kicked off by the 
burly tourist in a pugaree. These little extraordinary 
events of the day are not such bad condiment for the 
evening dinner, with its average hour and a half of 
tediousness. As for the morrow, it may be devoted 
to the dance at the Governor-General's in Santa 
Cruz, his Excellency, with a keen sense of the benefit 
his province is likely to get from the influx of foreign 
purses, having sent an invitation for a score or so of 
the English of Puerto. And on the following day 
there is a riding party and a picnic for those who 
think it not unbecoming to take their pleasure on 
Sunday, and a new preacher for those who attend 
service. 

Add to these mild diversions the excitement that 
comes in with every steamer bearing its quota of new 
visitors, letters, newspapers, &c, and the conscious- 
ness, individual and collective, that the place is 
health-restoring in a remarkable degree, and you will 
see that this Grand Hotel of Orotava, with its 
tropical gardens, lofty irreproachable rooms, and 
comforting cuisine, is not to be despised. 

Puerto is a comatose little town of about 4,000 
inhabitants, built on a bed of lava, which in the 
thirteenth century flowed hither and into the sea 
from one of the three small volcanic humps that 



4 



PUERTO. 



35 



stand up with an air of menace in the midst of the 
valley of Orotava. 

In half an hour one may walk by a narrow and 
tortuous river-bed, with pent precipitous walls like a 
miniature canon, to the base of this pyramid of iri- 
descent ash, whence the foundations of Puerto issued 
in fiery solution. 

With patience and another half-hour one may climb 
to the top of the volcaneta. It is already crumbling 
away, even as the lava it exuded is disintegrating, 
and become a prey to vines, mulberry, and peach 
trees. Wild fig and euphorbia bushes have taken 
root in it, and their twigs are bound together by the 
stout webs of fat, mottled spiders, who look able 
and willing to resent the collapse of their careful 
establishments. From this vantage ground there is 
a broad view of the villages of Orotava and the sea, 
even to the island of Palma, fifty miles away. 

Puerto, like Laguna, is a moribund town. It has 
many substantial houses, with fascinating patios and 
balconies, and the urchins who ascend to the belfry 
of its parish church, and work the clappers of the 
bells, daily make noise enough for half a dozen active 
seaports : but the grass in the slippery streets bears 
witness against Puerto. In the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries the English agents of the Lon- 
don wine merchants who bought Canary wine, 
mainly resided here. They were the authors of the 
best of Puerto's houses. They made much money, 
lived jovially, married the prettiest Spanish girls of 
Tenerife, and left their progeny to perpetuate the 
virtues of Englishmen in the island. Indeed, they 



36 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



were so keen commercially, that at one time they all 
but had the monopoly of the local wines. The growers 
got pinched under this mercantile pressure, and, 
after protesting in vain, attacked the English ware- 
houses. Thus it happened that in 1666, at Garachico, 
a few miles west of Puerto, scores of barrels of wine 
were burst in the night by bands of masked peasants, 
and the liquor was sent flowing down the gutters 
into the sea. In the eighteenth century we had 
begun to tire of Canary wines : Madeira was super- 
seding them. Nevertheless, as Viera says, though 
we spoke ill of Canary, we still bought it. We 
continued, in fact, to buy it, until the oidium disease, 
early in this century, came disastrously upon the 
vineyards of Tenerife. The cloud which then fell 
upon Puerto has not yet lifted. 

Both the church and the present inhabitants of Puerto 
show traces of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic blood. 
One, Don Bernardo Walsh — " vir bonus et justus . . . 
omnibus innocuus" — who died in 1713, is responsible 
for a chapel of St. Patrick in the church, and for a 
red and green altar of stupendous ugliness. He also 
was the donor of the font. His wife, a dame of the 
Fitzgerald family, lies buried here by his side. In the 
Chapel of St. Joseph, opposite to that of St. Patrick, 
is similar witness to the fellowship between Puerto 
and Ireland. The handsome heavy wood screen 
behind the altar is surmounted by a harp, and here, 
too, lie members of the family of Don Bernardo, who 
seems to have assumed the euphonious alias of 
Valois, and the titles of nobility deserved fry such a 
name. A certain medical man named Shee, "Apollo 



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"POD; 



PUERTO S HARBOUR. 



39 



Hesperidum," who died in 1724, and whose earlier 
associations with Ireland are referred to on his 
tombstone, shares this mortuary chapel with the 
Valois or Walshes. I do not know how to explain 
this exodus hither of Irishmen, apparently about the 
time of the War of the Spanish Succession. The 
Canarians supported Philip V. against the Archduke 
Charles, our candidate for the throne, and therefore 
we were on terms of enmity with them. Blue eyes, 
wit, and a pleasant touch of Irish brogue, are, more- 
over, the characteristics of several residents still in 
Puerto. 

Two hundred years ago Puerto was dignified as 
"the key of the island." This does but prove how 
deficient is Tenerife in harbourages. The port is a 
tiny inlet made by the inclination of its mole towards 
the gnarled black rocks of lava on one side of it. It 
will hold a smack of a few score tons ; but so terrific 
is the surf that the open sea is safer than the har- 
bour. Even when there is no wind, the waves thunder 
into the little bay, and fly a hundred feet high into 
spray against the roofs of the houses which perch on 
the shore rocks. 

South-west of the bay is a battery as diminutive 
as the harbour. It was erected to guard this precious 
position ; but I doubt if it ever had cause to fire one 
of the toy guns with which it was furnished. For, 
as old Glas, the first English historian of the 
Canaries, says — " The surf that continually breaks 
upon the shore is a better defence than a garrison of 
10,000 of the best troops." Most of the Canarian 
seaports at one time or another had to repel priva- 



4 o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



teers, or submit to be sacked by them ; but Puerto 
de la Cruz has no such records in its history. To 
the east of the port is a limited stretch of black 
basaltic sand, bordered with tamarisk bushes. A 
shrine is the only guard-house here ; but, indeed, 
though rocks are wanting, the surf is even more 
violent than in the harbour. 

Above this hot black sand (Humboldt found its 
refracting power to be g° Reamur greater than that 
of the ordinary white quartzose sand) is a precipitous 
rock, which soon excites the interest of a visitor. It 
rises about three hundred feet over the sea -level, and 
its brow is daintily fringed with palms. The villa 
property which runs to the very edge of this rock is 
known as La Paz (Peace). Here Humboldt spent a 
day or two during his hasty view of Tenerife. He is 
now succeeded by a British officer and his family, 
who have rented the villa, and made it as like an 
English country house as a Spanish bungalow can 
be, with its surroundings of sugar cane, bananas, 
plumbago bushes, and palms, instead of turf, trim 
garden plots, high elms, and oaks. 

Under the edge of this precipice, I found a trace of 
old Guanche times that set me reflecting. In 
scrambling obliquely down the rock sides among the 
euphorbia, prickly pear, and scrub fig trees, I all but 
slipped feet first into a pit which suddenly appeared 
in the sand and scoriae of the surface. This hole, 
about twenty feet deep, held an immense medley of 
human bones — shins, . ribs, arms, and crania, all 
intermixed with the earth that had fallen in from the 
top of the cave. It was an ancient burial place of 



SEPULCHRAL CAVES. 



43 



the aborigines of Tenerife, who made it a point of 
honour to inter their dead in holes almost inacces- 
sible to ordinary human beings. I had ere this seen 
from below a circular opening in the face of the cliff 
where it is actually perpendicular, with a cluster of 
thigh bones lolling in view against the parapet, like 
men and women in an opera box. This opening 
seawards sufficed to throw a dim light into the 
sepulchre. 

But, indeed, Tenerife must teem with the bones 
and mummies of the Guanches. The problem is — 
to get at them. Given a ravine with sides more or 
less precipitous, and one may be sure that the 
natural caves in its scoriated walls have been used 
as chambers for the dead. Viera, the best historian 
of the Canaries, had the luck to enter one of these 
caves, containing more than a thousand mummies, 
some recumbent, others erect and leaning against the 
walls. He attributed a fabulous age to these dead. 
Some, he thought, might date from the time of Juba. 
But for ages it was the fashion with the apothecaries 
of Europe to pay good prices for Guanche mummies, 
which were esteemed as very valuable ingredients in 
divers mediaeval medicines. British sailors and 
others have therefore transported as many as they 
could lay hands upon, and these halls of the dead 
are now denuded of their occupants. 

During my stay in Orotava, however, a Swede with 
a rage for ethnic types, scented out a cave that had 
not been much disturbed, and carried off to his native 
land, for the enrichment of the museums, a hamper 
full of skulls. Another cave was explored with dim- 



-44 



THE CA NARY IS LA NDS. 



cutty, aided by ladders and ropes, by some English- 
men, who trod knee-deep in brown dust and 
skeletons, and contrived to dig from out this dry swamp 
of dead humanity, fish hooks, needles of bone, and 
scalps of the ruddy hair that adorned the Guanches, 
It appeared that the cave had long been the resort of 
a family of poor agriculturists, who found that its 
dust was much liked by the beans and potatoes of 
their garden. 

The cave of La Paz is too exposed to have been 
exempt from rifling. It has yielded some well-de- 
veloped heads to the collection of an enterprising 
chemist of Puerto, and innumerable teeth for retail 
by the Puerto boys at so much a dozen. We got 
into it one day with a rope, and toiled among the dry 
bones, to little antiquarian purpose ; but we raised a 
dust that was as pungent and operative as Scotch 
rappee. 

The Guanche skulls are remarkable for their 
breadth at the cheek bones, and the fine preservation 
of the teeth. In the museum of Tacoronte are heads 
of admirable symmetry, and also heads of a base 
type. Probably the structural difference between a 
Guanche noble and a common peasant, or a member 
of the degraded class of butchers or embalmers, was 
as emphatic as if they were of different human 
families. 

Besides La Paz, there is another villa in the 
neighbourhood of Puerto which may vie with it for 
beauty and luxuriant vegetation. This also is at 
present occupied by an English person, the widow of 
an English gentleman who came here ill, and lived 




A GUANCHE SEPULCHRE, 



) 



THE COCHINEAL INSECT. 



49 



through several decades in excellent health. The 
garden contains some gems of the tropics, and 
very many dissimilar fruits and flowers. There 
is also a croquet lawn enclosed by palm trees, 
jasmin, plumbago, and bougainvillea bushes, all in full 
bloom, young dragon trees, and custard apple trees, 
with a bower of vines as a shelter at one end, and a 
mixed perfume of incredible richness. When this 
English invalid came here, the land was malpais, 
or good for nothing, because of the lava which over- 
whelmed it. Now, a gay ochre villa, with palm tufts 
before and behind it, this glorious garden, and careful 
vineyards, irrigated by as careful canals of flowing 
water, show what industry and energy can do with 
even the worst of soil. But it must be admitted that 
the lava, which had then been out about five cen- 
turies, and was friable from decomposition, only 
needed the hand of a master to turn it to account. 

On the skirts of this delightful property I was 
introduced to the cochineal insect : as usual, in a 
cloud of white dust, on the eccentric ear of the prickly 
pear. He is a fat, dark, spherical little creature, look- 
ing like a black currant, and with neither head, legs, 
nor tail, to the casual observer. In fact, he is so 
inanimate that one may squash him between finger 
and thumb without any qualm of conscience. He is 
nothing but a black currant, sure enough, though the 
bright carmine or lake exusion from his body, which 
serves him for blood and us for dye, is a better 
colour than the juice of the currant. 

It was the cultivation of these pleasant little indi- 
viduals which, a score of years ago, put no less than 

5 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



40 per cent, per annum upon investments into the 
pockets of the cultivators. Such prosperity was too 
good to last. The insect was not introduced into 
Tenerife until 1825 ; and for a time it could not be 
encouraged to propagate successfully. A priest was 
the discoverer of the right method of nurture, and to 
him it is due that from 1845 to 1866 an annual crop 
of from two to six million pounds of cochineal was 
produced. 

A cochineal plantation has a singular aspect. The 
larvae, being very delicate, and rather thick-witted, 
have to be tied upon the cactus plant, which is to be 
their nursery and their nourishment at the same time. 
Thus one sees hundreds of the shoots of the prickly 
pear — the cactus in question — all bandaged with white 
linen, as if they had the toothache. In this way the 
insects are kept warm and dry during the winter, and 
induced to adhere to the plant itself. When they are 
full grown, they are ruthlessly swept from their 
prickly quarters, shaken or baked to death, and dried 
in the sun. The shrivelled anatomies are then packed 
in bags, and sold as ripe merchandise at about £5 a 
hundredweight. 

Besides the cochineal, Tenerife grows a little sugar 
and tobacco. A century and a half ago not fewer 
than a thousand negroes were employed on a single 
plantation of the island — that of Adeje. Nowadays, 
however, the sugar industry has fallen, and the newer 
industry of tobacco is likely to supplant it. 

The local wines are in as low a state as the sugar 
and cochineal of the island. They have lost ground 
sadly since the time when Falstaff blurted their 



A VILLA OF TENERIFE, 



A FLOOD IN PUERTO. 



53 



praises. As a matter of form, the hotel list included 
two or three varieties of Tenerifan wine, though it 
was notorious that none but case-hardened stomachs 
could endure them. Even the Malvasia, in spite of 
its reputation and agreeable savour, plays tricks in an 
ungenerous manner upon the man who patronises it. 
Hence the anomalous and humiliating custom of 
drinking Bordeaux and Burgundy in a country that 
ought to put France to the blush for its wines. 
When I ordered a bottle of Malvasia at dinner, the 
head waiter, a good and considerate man, asked, in a 
whisper, if I knew what I was doing. It is considered 
wise to talk with the doctor before making such a 
bold experiment. 

No wonder, therefore, that there are so many 
empty warehouses at Puerto, or warehouses that once 
held tuns of Canary, but now are stacked with maize, 
or with salt fish for Lenten consumption. During my 
strolls through the silent streets I looked into deserted 
houses, conventual and other buildings, with over- 
grown gardens, and monstrous accumulations of foul 
dirt and cobwebs. " Ah ! if only the disease had not 
come to us ! " wailed the son of one of the ruined 
wine merchants. " It was different before. And the 
flood of 1826 too — that was bad for Puerto ! It 
rained for hours and hours, and for days in the moun- 
tains, so that the water ran down the river beds with 
the noise of guns. But the river beds could not hold 
it, there was so much ! And thus it swept into the 
town, and drowned hundreds of men and women and 
beasts, and carried them and the very houses out on 
to the Atlantic." 



54 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



As a matter of fact, this terrific inundation destroyed 
225 houses, and drowned 235 people and 804 head of 
cattle. In the district of Laguna, it was not satisfied 
with such superficial havoc. Whole estates were 
washed from the steep hill sides into the valleys ; so 
that the unfortunate proprietors saw nothing but the 
bare rock-bed of their fields remaining to them. 

Forgetting for the moment the balmy luxurious air 
and charming scenery of these islands, and turning 
to the category of evils they have suffered from storms 
like this storm, from piratical ravages, locusts, pesti- 
lence, drought and earthquakes, one cannot but 
realise that the term Fortunate Isles, applied to them 
of old, has and has had only a comparative meaning 
after all. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Various conjectural origins of the name, people, and land of the 
Canary Islands — The island of San Borondon — The legen- 
dary first inhabitants — The Canaries and the Elysian Fields 
identical. 

I had hoped to be able in this little book to give a 
concise yet complete account of the early traditions 
and history of the Canary Isles : but I find it impos- 
sible. Scores of learned and unlearned men, lay and 
ecclesiastic, have, centuries ago, preceded me in this 
work. They have written it in various species of 
prose, and in poetry of the epic kind. The facts of 
common acquisition to them all have been swelled by 
some of them into gigantic exaggerations, and this un- 
truthful nucleus they have buried under a crust of new 
conjectures, suggestions, hypotheses, and statements, 
most or all of which they owe to their own heated 
brains, and to their anxiety for the fame that attends 
even upon presumptuous originality. These fantastic 
and sinful writers have been followed by others, 
lazy rather than imaginative, who have worked 
after the eclectic mode. They have chosen a pretty 
theory from one ancient, a monstrous lie from another, 
a ridiculous assertion from a third ; and, with a cer- 



56 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



tain labour, have moulded the whole into what they 
were pleased to call a history. The amount of non- 
sense in the Canarian bibliography is therefore pro- 
digious. A man might sift his wits away in the effort to 
f extract the grains of sense from the piles of nonsense. 

At least, however, I will give a brief common epi- 
tome of the conceived origin of the name, the inhabi- 
tants, and the very bulk itself of the islands : for 
nothing has been taken for granted about these petty 
spots in the Atlantic. The Abbe Viera, who wrote 
in the last century, is the Canarian classic historian. 
I rely upon the 1,700 octavo pages of his four volumes 
for my wisest words. 

The Canarian Archipelago consists of seven in- 
habited islands and five uninhabited islets, all rang- 
ing between latitude 27 30' and 29 25' north, and 
between longitude 13 and 18 west of Greenwich. 
Their nearness to the north-west coast of Africa is 
therefore apparent. 

The islands, in the order of their size, are Tene- 
rife, 1,946 square kilometres ; Fuerteventura 
(with Lobos), 1,722 kilometres ; Grand Canary, 
1,376 kilometres ; Lanzarote (with adjacent islets), 
741 kilometres ; Palma, 726 kilometres ; Gomera, 
378 kilometres ; Hierro, 278 kilometres. Their 
present population is nearly 300,000 — of which 
Tenerife and Grand Canary provide more than half. 

But whence the name Canary, which, late in the 
middle ages, superseded the title of " Fortunate," 
applied to them by King Juba, and recorded by Pliny ? 
Ah, whence indeed ? Here are a few solutions for 
the amusement of philologists. 



EXERCISES IN NOMENCLATURE. 57 



Antonio de Viana, a native of Tenerife, printed, in 
1604, an epic poem in blank verse, beginning, 

" I sing the origin of the name Canary." 

The poem contains sixteen cantos, each averaging 
twenty-four pages, and thirty-six lines to the page. 
But it must be confessed that he does not give all the 
13,000 lines of the epic to the single subject. He 
is responsible for the hardy and unscriptural plea 
that Noah, late in life, had two children, Crano and 
Crana, who put to sea, sailed into the Atlantic, and 
landed on the Canaries. Once here, the rest was 
easy. They peopled these solitary rocks by their 
own unaided efforts. The islands were also named 
after them — Crana or Crano. For the sake of 
euphony, their descendants decided to transpose the 
letters of their great ancestors' name. Hence arose 
Canar — whence Canaria. 

This thought of deducing from Noah the generic 
name of the group seemed to subsequent writers so 
brilliant that they hesitated not to expand it. Thus 
that credulous old simpleton, Nunez de la Pena, 
ascribes Gomera to Gomer, a grandson of Noah, by 
Japhet, and Hierro, the most westerly isle, to Hero, 
a great grandson. 

Again, it is assumed by some people that in the 
Canaries there is a never-ending chorus of song from 
the little yellow birds, which, it is also assumed, have 
given these islands their name. Both assumptions 
are wrong. As for the first, were it so, the brain- 
sick wanderer to Tenerife, in search of tranquillity, 
might as well take rooms in Cheapside. . As for the 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



second, though there were not wanting those who 
derived Canada from the Latin cano, with refer- 
ence to the canary birds of the islands, others, with 
more intelligence, have pointed out that it is the 
i birds who have taken the name of the islands, and 
not the islands a name derived from an attribute of 
the birds. 

A third source of strife is hardly less absurd. Is it 
not clear, asks Ambrosio Calepino, that the word 
Canary comes from the Spanish cana, or the Latin 
canna, which means a cane, and especially a sugar 
cane ? The islands grow sugar cane — that settles it. 
But this dull gentleman did not perceive that he had 
laboriously harnessed his cart to the horse. The 
aborigines called Grand Canary, Canada (whence 
the distinctive name of the group), long before the 
Spaniards conquered it. And it is simple knowledge 
that the conquerors first introduced the sugar cane 
into the islands. 

Thomas Nicols, an Englishman, whose travels, 
early in the sixteenth century, appear in the Purchas' 
collection, agrees somewhat with Calepino. He 
says he was informed by the natives that their land 
was called after the euphorbias, or cardons, which 
abound in it. But the root of the matter is as in- 
secure as Calepino's. The euphorbias were called 
canas by the Spaniards, and Nicols did not see that 
a Spanish word could not explain a name that existed 
ere Spain influenced Canary. 

A priest broaches the theory that Canary and 
Canaan are identical in origin. The Canaanites who 
fled before Joshua when he invaded Palestine took to 



THE EVIDENCE OF PLINY. 



59 



the sea like the children of Noah, and reached the 
Fortunate Isles. Again, the Canarians are the off- 
spring of the tribes of Israel, dispersed by Shal- 
maneser. But, it has been well asked, what was there 
in common between the luxury of Tyre and the ex- 
treme simplicity of the Canarians, alike in food and 
clothing ? 

The adjacent mainland of Africa offers a sixth 
elucidation. Ninety miles east of Grand Canary is 
the cape we call Bojadore or Mogadore, but which 
Ptolemy and others called Chaunaria extrema — 
whence Caunaria and Canada. This derivation is 
not to be despised. 

But here comes Pliny, with an authoritative claim 
in the christening. Writing about the Fortunate 
Islands, and drawing his material from the manu- 
script of King Juba, who had visited them in person, 
he says explicitly that the island of Canary got its 
name from the multitude of huge dogs in it — two of 
which dogs Juba took back with him to Africa. 
Viera holds to this as the most rational of all the 
theories ; and, indeed, it sufficiently accounts for the 
name given to it by King Juba. It were, however, a 
curious problem for an antiquary to show why Canary 
in after ages retained this Latin name, while five of 
the other islands, then known respectively as Ombrios, 
Junonia, the greater and the less, Capraria, and 
Nivaria, lost completely their old designations. The 
dogs of Canary are certainly a distinct breed. Even 
Nicols notices them ; and he accuses the natives of 
eating them. 

A last reckless surmise is the association of the 



6o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



island peopled by Elishah, the son of Javan (Genesis 
x. 4), and quoted in Ezekiel xxvii. 7, with the Elysian 
Fields of the ancients, which again have been iden- 
tified with the Canary group. 

But the subject is bewildering, and I am glad to 
turn my back upon it. There are they who doubt if 
Tenerife and its six companions are the Fortunate 
Islands referred to by Pliny. Great Britain is pre- 
ferred : in which case, of course, King Juba carried 
home a couple of bull-dogs for the improvement of 
his African kennels. In short, nothing but impudence 
is needed to support the thesis that the Canary Isles 
have no fellowship whatever with Tenerife, Grand 
Canary, and the others of this Archipelago. 

From the name we fall to a consideration of the 
structural history of the islands. Were the Canaries 
at one time a part of the continent of Africa? Was 
it due to Noah's flood that they first became insu- 
lated ? Are they identical with the Atlantis of Plato? 
Or are they comparatively modern additions to the 
landed property of our globe, by submarine upheaval? 

There is no lack of evidence for the support of 
these various notions, and so the dilettante may pick 
and choose at his leisure. The sandy soil and the 
camels of the eastern islands are held as conclusive 
testimony that they and the continent were formerly 
one. The flora of the islands and the continent is 
almost the same. The language of the Berbers, the 
nearest uncivilized race of Africa, has been proved 
to have close affinity with the individual languages 
of the islanders before the conquest. 

Everything indicates therefore that the islands are 



SAN BORONDON. 



6 



merely accidental parings from the mainland. If a 
thousand fathoms of water intervene, it is nothing to 
the point. 

Similarly, in the words of a modern, " everything 
indicates that this whole island of Tenerife is, in its 
entirety, but the summit of a half-risen mountain." 
(Piazzi Smyth.) 

After this, one cannot be surprised to learn that 
for several centuries the Spaniards did not know 
exactly how many islands they ought to include in 
the number of the Canaries. 

The history of the " enchanted island " of San 
Borondon is indeed a most singular geographical 
romance. For nearly three centuries after the con- 
quest, the authorities were frequently puzzled by 
reports, having every apparent mark of truth, of the 
observation of an island in the neighbourhood of the 
Canarian Archipelago, and which was believed to be 
the eighth member of the group. This island could 
never be found by'direct search ; but, when it was 
least looked for, then, to the wonder of the mariners, 
its strange high mountains were wont to loom in 
sight. No one could account for such coquettish 
conduct. Nevertheless, the island was duly registered 
as a property of the Spanish Crown. 

Among the articles of the treaty of Evora, in 
1519, between Spain and Portugal, in which treaty 
Portugal ceded to Spain its claim of seignorage over 
the Canaries, San Borondon is included as the island 
" Non Trubada " (not found). It was, however, 
fancifully described as 87 leagues long and 28 broad ; 
as being 40 leagues distant from Palma, 100 leagues 



62 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



from Hierro ; and 40, 15, 10, or 8 leagues (according 
to the diversity of opinion) from the island of 
Gomera. 

The name of this mysterious island was derived 
from a certain Scotch monk, Saint Brandon, or 
Blandon, or Borondon, who, in the sixth century, 
with a fellow monk, Saint Maclovius, and eighteen 
companions, is said to have set out on an evan- 
gelizing tour from the north, and arrived in the 
Canarian waters. 

Sigeberto, a mediaeval chronicler, gives the details 
of what followed, with quaint circumstantiality. 
The monks had been long at sea without a sight of 
land. Easter Sunday arrived, and they were bitterly 
distressed that they were unable to celebrate the 
Holy Eucharist. In their sorrow they all went upon 
their knees on the deck of the little ship, and prayed 
to God to create some land in the middle of the 
ocean, available for the Paschal services. Hereupon 
the island of San Borondon or Brandon made its 
first appearance, and, in a transport of joy, the monks 
went ashore, and built an altar. 

Another version of the story says that the Saint 
Maclovius whose name is associated with Saint 
Brandon, was not a companion, but a gigantic native 
of the island, whom Saint Brandon found dead in a 
cave, resuscitated, and baptized. But the amazed 
giant was not altogether satisfied with his involun- 
tary resurrection. Fifteen days after the event, he 
begged that he might be allowed to return to his 
grave. His request was granted ; but, before his 
second death, he informed his benefactor {sic) that 



THE SEARCH FOR SAN BORONDON. 



63 



his contemporaries had been acquainted with the 
mystery of the Trinity and the Pains of Hell. 

Then the monks sailed away, and left the island to 
itself. 

It has been suggested that this temporary altar in 
the sea was only a whale, miraculously controlled. 
But this does not explain the constant reappearance 
of the island, with its proper equipment of mountains, 
wood, and water. Four times between 1526 and 1721 
the Spanish officials of the Canaries sent expeditions 
in quest of San Borondon. Chaplains and artificers, 
as well as warriors, were on board these boats. But 
each expedition returned discomfited. The pilots 
and mariners who had told such unprofitable tales 
never omitted one feature pertaining to the island. 
A storm invariably drove them away from it, when 
they had watered the ship, and had had time to 
admire its beauty and fruitfulness. For centuries, 
however, though San Borondon was truly an Apro- 
situs, or inaccessible island, no one seems to have 
doubted its existence. It was somewhere, but its 
day had not yet come. So late as 1730, two fathers 
of the Church, " the one very short of sight and the 
other of intelligence," while with their bishop in the 
Isle of Palma, thought they saw San Borondon, and 
immediately wanted to go thither to preach the 
gospel. One precise historian even endows it with 
an archbishop and six bishops, seven wealthy cities, 
harbours, rivers, and a Christian people, blessed with 
all the blessings of prosperity. After this, one may 
excuse Gautier, the French geographer, who, in 
1755, boldly set down the island of San Borondon 



6 4 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



on his map. According to him, it stood 5 west of 
Hierro, and in latitude 29 . 

It were a thankless task to attempt to explain how 
an error like this held the popular understanding for 
so long a time. Where there is little knowledge 
there is much credulity. 

The Abbe himself, one of the most enlightened 
Spaniards of his age (1731-1813), tried to explain 
San Borondon as a freak of refraction ; but Hum- 
boldt soon afterwards demonstrated that this expla- 
nation was as unsound as its predecessors. 




The island of San Borondon, or San^ Blandon, or San Brandon, or San 
Brandan, according to Spanish belief in the fifteenth to the eighteenth 
century. (From a drawing made in 1730 by a priest of Palma.) 



I must add a few words about the mythical first 
inhabitants of these islands, before I describe the 
actual people whom the Spaniards, in the fifteenth 
century, crushed into subjection to the Peninsula. 
It may be thought that this question has already 
been sufficiently debated as part and parcel of the 
puzzle of the origin of the word " Canary." No 
such thing. It has involved distinct treatises of 



ORIGIN OF THE CANARIANS. 65 



awful length, complexity, and weight, and the subject 
is still open to discussion. 

We have seen that Canaan, Gomer and Hero, the 
grandson and great grandson of Noah, and Elishah 
the son of Javan, also a great grandson of the same 
patriarch, have been made responsible for the peopling 
of the isles. So also has the Phoenician Hercules 
(from Harokel, a merchant), who, in a naval battle 
with the King of Mauritania, drove certain of the 
Africans into the archipelago, where they stayed 
from that time forward. Others give the early 
parents of some of the isles a low origin. They 
were a band of criminals whom Himbric, king of 
the Vandals, exiled from the mainland, having 
deprived them of their forefingers and thumbs, and 
abbreviated their tongues. This seemed to account 
for the thick pronunciation which characterized 
the native speech when the Spaniards came upon 
the isles. 

Then they are regarded as autochthones, the for- 
tunate few who clung to the high lands of Atlantis, 
when the greater part of that island — of which the 
present Canaries are the survival — went down into 
the sea. 

Again, Herodotus tells us of Egyptians who, in 
616 b.c, sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, from 
east to west. It were natural that, in their return 
home after this long voyage, certain of these brave 
fellows should be tempted to land among the verdure 
of the Canaries. Egypt, therefore, has a claim upon 
the stock of the country. 

These two or three of the possible progenitors of 
6 



66 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the Canarians will suffice for my purpose. I do 
not wish to enter upon controversy, whether ethno- 
logical or etymological— especially about a group of 
islands whose united superficies is less than the area 
of a single English county. But I willingly admit 
that these islands may be " the Elysian Fields at 
the extremity of the world," whither the happy 
Menelaus was to go for the endless winter of his life 
— " where men live sweet and tranquil days, where 
there is no snow, nor rain, nor severe winters ; but a 
never-changing balmy air, breathed from the sea." 

There is, in truth, so little rain in the island that 
a poet may be forgiven when he says that there 
is none at all. But is it not odd that the island 
of Tenerife — a component part of this heaven on 
earth — should have been called by the Guanches 
of the middle ages, Hell? and, therefore, also styled 
" Infernus " in the early Bulls, issued by the Popes 
of Rome in ecclesiastical matters that concerned 
the Canaries ? 



CHAPTER V. 



Tacoronte — Its museum and miraculous crucifix — The Guanches 
— Their mummies and method of embalming — Their polity 
— Coronations — Ceremony of ennobling — Religion — The 
vestal virgins of Grand Canary — Education — Morals — 
Trial by smoke — Punishment of crime — Dress — General 
character — Food — The Palma mode of dying — Dwellings 
and furniture — Inscription of Belmaco — Strength and 
agility — Reflections. 

A visit to the pretty village of Tacoronte, on the 
breezy slopes between Orotava and Laguna, gives 
me a fit opportunity to say something about the 
Guanches of Tenerife, and their barbarian brethren 
in the other Canarian islands. 

Tacoronte has only four or five thousand inhabi- 
tants among its palm trees and red and white 
villas ; but it boasts a museum of native antiquities 
not to be matched in Tenerife. 

Here, in pleasant disorder, one sees the mummies, 
the weapons, the unguents, the spices, and clothing 
of these ancients, who, three centuries ago, were 
still talked of by the Spaniards who had suppressed 
them as ideals of "Arcadian innocence" and 
gentle simplicity. The kingdom of this world is for 
the strong : the poor dispossessed Guanches w r ere 



68 THE CANARY ISLANDS. 

welcome to poetic excellence. Besides, those of 
them who had not died in the process of civilizing, 
were so degraded that it cost nothing to praise their 
forefathers. It may be remembered also that, in 
spite of this laudation, the governors of the six 
great colleges of Spain made it a bar to the admis- 
sion thereto of a boy, that he had Guanche blood 
in him. 

This ancient town, the seat of " the proud Acaymo," 
one of the nine kings, who, after Tinerfe, divided the 
island between them, contains other objects of interest, 
as well as the museum. Its women are beautiful : 
but what is one to say about the ladies of a land, 
each little village of which claims to surpass all the 
others for its beautiful women ! There is an extra- 
ordinary sameness about black eyes, viewed in the 
abstract ; and yet, putting in retrospect the women 
of one place against those of another, I recall such 
sweet varieties of charms as baffle all cold com- 
parisons. In its church there is a silver chandelier, 
weighing a quintal, or about a hundred pounds 
avoirdupois ; and also a wonder-working crucifix, 
which the sacristan shows with a dubious glance 
of appeal, as if imploring it to withhold any miracu- 
lous proof of wrath which it might feel inclined to 
manifest, to punish him for his sins. A record 
is kept of the attested miracles wrought by this 
ensanguined figure ; but they do not differ from 
other miracles of the kind. A freak of the marvel- 
lous that met us in Tacoronte, and made more 
impression than these tales, was a mule walking 
up the street at a demure pace in two pair of 



GUANCHE MUMMIES. 



69 



sackcloth breeches. " It is because of the flies, 
senor, the cursed flies ! " said the muleteer, with 
a smile of sympathy. I fancy the animal would 
rather have had his red wounds exposed to the 
flies — venomous though they are — than be pent in 
such a stiff unnatural style. 

The mummies of Tacoronte have none of that 
cheerful picturesqueness with which an Egyptian 
mummy in his case invariably charms the eye. 
They are indeed very gruesome. There is a queen 
with a fine set of white teeth, and thick curly mouse- 
coloured hair on her head. She is wrapped in 
several sheepskins, the wool being inside, and tied 
up with parchment thongs. But her attitude and 
general appearance give her the look of a large 
cat that has been done to death through much 
agony, and mummified while in the last convulsive 
paroxysm. A still more ghastly object is a loath- 
some dishevelled old man with his tongue out. But 
one notices with interest, that almond-shaped finger 
and toe-nails were the fashion even among the 
Guanches. 

The Guanche method of embalming differed from 
the Egyptian. The embalmers were a despised class 
of people, but very skilful. They took charge of the 
dead man, drew out his entrails through the mouth, 
washed him with salt and water, paying particular 
attention to the ears, the nose, the fingers, nails, 
and other tender parts, and then rubbed the body 
with an ointment of goat's butter, aromatic herbs, 
turpentine, bark, pumice dust, wood ash, and other 
absorptive materials. Afterwards, it was placed in 



;o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the sun for fifteen days, during which time the 
funeral ceremonies lasted, with much lamentation 
and weeping. Then the mummy was a finished 
work of art, dry and light as paper. It was lastly 
swaddled in sheep or goat skins (sometimes as many 
as ten or twelve), tied, ticketed for future recogni- 
tion, and buried in a cave. Monarchs and the 
nobility were put in coffins of hard wood, and either 
set upright against the side of the cave in regular 
order, or laid horizontally, about two feet from 
the ground, on crossed pieces of pine or tilo timber. 

But although we can give such circumstantial 
details about their process of embalming, we could 
no more practise the art with their success than we 
could preserve the dead in all the freshness of life, 
without the secret of Ruysch or Swammerdam. 

Let us now turn to the polity and manners of 
these people. 

The Guanche government was a kindly despotism. 
Their theory of the creation of human beings was 
perhaps the most aristocratic ever conceived. At 
first, they said, God made an equal number of men 
and women, and provided them all with sufficient 
means of subsistence. After a time, however, He 
created others, whom He omitted to endow with 
worldly goods. And when these applied to Him 
for sheep and goats, He bade them serve their 
elders, who would then give them food and raiment 
in return for their services. 

Thus originated the three orders of Guanche 
society — the kings, the nobles, and the common 
people or servants. The king, as the individual 



GUANCHE POLITY. 



7i 



representative of the nobles, owned all the land, the 
usufruct of which he gave to his people, in pro- 
portion to the size of their families. At the death 
of these vassals in chief (as they might be called) 
their estates reverted to the sovereign, who then 
dispersed them anew among the survivors. 

The kingship in Tenerife was hereditary. Until 
about a hundred years before the Conquest, there 
was but one monarch for the whole island. The 
great Tinerfe, at his death, however, left nine sons, 
and the realm fell into nine petty kingdoms or 
principalities. In each kingdom the skull of the 
first sovereign of that realm was preserved. A new 
monarch convened his nobles in the place of 
assembly, and, having kissed his ancestor's skull, 
solemnly placed it on his head, saying, " I swear 
by this bone, which once wore the crown, to follow 
the example of him to whom it belonged, and to 
study the happiness of my subjects." The nobles 
then one by one took the skull, and, respectfully 
holding it on their right shoulder, kissed it and 
said, " I swear by thy coronation day to guard our 
realm, and the king thy descendant." The crown 
assumed by the king was a garland of laurel, palm, 
and sweet flowers, and the sceptre the thigh bone 
of the monarch upon whose skull the oaths were 
made. 

The ceremony by which the son of a noble 
Guanche was himself at a ripe age enrolled among 
the aristocracy was curious, The Faycan or high- 
priest (the second person in the realm, and generally 
the king's brother) received the aspirant in the 



72 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



presence of the people — the youth's long hair 
marking the legitimacy of his claim to nobility. 
The Faycan then addressed the assembly, " In the 
eternal name of God (Alcorac), I conjure you all 

to declare if you have ever seen N , the son of 

M , enter into the cattle yard to milk or kill 

the goats : If you know that he has prepared 
food with his own hands : If he has made raids 
in time of peace : If he has been uncivil or spoken 
amiss, especially to a woman." A favourable reply 
having been given by his hearers, the pontiff then 
cut the youth's hair below the ears, and gave him 
a lance to use in the service of the king. 1 Thence- 
forward, he was a noble. But were he convicted 
of soiling his hands by such ungentlemanly deeds as 
those mentioned, his hair was all snipped from his 
head, and he was condemned to be a villein for life. 

In the island of Grand Canary, a noble would 
never wound or kill any one, except in a stand-up 
fight. And in time of war, when he had his enemy 
at his feet, he would not kill him. This chivalrous 
scrupulosity was such that it was held a most marked 
insult if raw meat of any kind were cut in his 
presence. 

It must not be supposed that the religion of the 
Guanches was an elaborate theological or ceremonial 
system. They called the Deity by synonyms 
meaning — the Preserver of the World ! The Sub- 
lime One ! The Great Lord ! Even after the Con- 

1 This lance was only a long piece of pine wood with a 
pointed extremity, hardened and blackened in the fire. The 
Tacoronte museum has specimens on its walls. 



PRAYERS FOR RAIN. 



73 



quest, when the Spaniards introduced Mariolatry, 
they could not be persuaded to honour the Virgin 
save as the mother of the Preserver of the World — 
of the Sublime One, &c. They had no idea of a Divine 
revelation, except the revelation of nature. Nor did 
they attempt the impossible by moulding images in 
conceivable likeness to Him they called the Preserver 
of the World. Only in times of drought they all be- 
took themselves to a high hill with a number of kids 
and lambs ; and thence their petitions for rain, com- 
mingled with the plaintive bleating of the motherless 
little animals, were supposed to ascend to the 
heavens. 

In Grand Canary, on the like occasions, the people, 
with palm leaves and sticks in their hands, went in 
procession, headed by the Vestal Virgins, carrying 
vases of milk and butter. They danced and wailed 
on the mountain top, and left the milk and butter as 
a propitiatory offering to the Deity. Their subse- 
quent conduct was extraordinary. Working them- 
selves into a rage, they descended to the sea-shore, 
with angry shouts and gestures, and flogged the 
waves with their palm canes and sticks until they 
were tired. Perhaps they had a vague idea of the 
principle of evaporation ; but surely not even the 
spectacle of Canute in his throne upon our Kentish 
coast could be more ridiculous than this stern casti- 
gation of the in-coming tide. 

The religion of the islanders of Palma was very 
primitive. In each of the twelve kingdoms of that 
country was a pile of loose stones, which served them 
for divinities. The Caldera, however, was peculiar in 



74 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



its possession of a natural isolated rock about one 
hundred feet high, with which the destinies of the 
people of the district were thought to be allied. It 
was therefore periodically approached with offerings 
of the entrails of pigs, sheep, &c. "Are you going 
to fall ? " one of the priests would say. " It will 
not, if you give it what you have got," was the reply 
from another priest. The offerings were then flung 
against it, as a sacrifice. 

It is doubtful if the hierarchy of the Guanches 
included the Vestal Virgins who were so greatly 
reverenced and so important a part in the religious 
ceremonies of the Grand Canarians. These women 
(admitted at a tender age, and absolutely chaste), 
called Harimaguadas, attended upon newly born 
children, poured water upon their heads, and gave 
them names. Unlike the Aztecs, however, who had 
the same form of ritual, they did not regard this 
lavation as in any way concerned with the inherent 
sinfulness of human nature. Among the Aztecs, again, 
a youth or a maiden on the threshold of adolescence 
was subjected to serious and formal lectures on the 
depravity of the heart, the evil that is in the world, 
the beneficial aridity of the paths of virtue, and so 
forth. The moral education of the Guanches, on the 
other hand, was very simple, and judiciously casual. 
" Look, my boy," an elder would say to his son, "at 
those two men : the one with a cheerful countenance, 
respected, possessing abundant flocks, and of a healthy 
body ; and the other, living like a dog, doing good 
neither to himself nor to others, and held in con- 
tempt by the rest of us. The one is a good, the other 



MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 



75 



a bad man. You would, of course, like to resemble 
the good man, therefore follow his example." 
The Guanches really offer the bracing spectacle of 
a people whose enjoyment of life was quite un- 
tinctured by the fancy that they were not as good as 
they might be. Their Faycan, indeed, was more of 
a temporal than a spiritual dignitary. 

In such a state of society, morality is likely to be 
a matter of convention only. A Guanche marriage 
was completed by the consent of the father to the 
applicant for his daughter's hand : her consent being 
previously obtained. But, according to some writers, 
before the consummation of the marriage, the bride 
had to keep a recumbent position indoors for thirty 
days, during which time she was required to do 
nothing but eat to the best of her ability ; and if at 
the end of the month this process had not fattened 
her to the bridegroom's satisfaction, he repudiated her. 
In a land where all worldly pelf was the king's, a suitor 
was not despised for his poor circumstances. But the 
melancholy practice of prelibation kept the husband 
aloof until the king, or a Faycan, or one of the nobles, 
relieved the bride of her virginity. In the eastern isle 
of Lanzarote, at one time, a woman was allowed to have 
three husbands. She maintained them in a sublime 
state of dependence, receiving them into her house, 
month by month, in due rotation. This custom did 
not prevail among the Guanches. With them, how- 
ever, divorce was as easy as marriage. A Guanche 
king, who could ally himself with none but royal 
blood, was at times obliged to marry his mother or 
his sister, But this habit cannot be imputed to 



76 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



licentiousness in a country where it was criminal in 
a man to address a word to a woman whom he did 
not know. 

The early history of Lanzarote has a singular 
illustration of the value ascribed to legitimacy in 
the regal line. A Spanish vessel visited the island 
in 1377, and the captain was amicably entertained by 
the king of the country. Nine months later the 
queen gave birth to a child which, from its fresh 
colour, rather mystified all except its mother. The 
child grew up, and in time became the wife of 
Guanarame, an undoubted son of the king's. 
Guanarame succeeded his father on the throne, and 
died, leaving a child as his heir. Certain of the 
nobles now accused Ico, the widow of Guanarame, of 
illegitimacy, whereby the child would be disinherited. 
She was condemned to a trial by smoke. Three 
plebeian women were chosen to be her companions in 
a tiny chamber which was so rigorously enclosed 
that no air could enter to mitigate the effect of the 
smoke from fires of straw kindled within it. If she 
died, it was proof of her impure birth. The plebeian 
women soon succumbed ; but Ico was saved by the 
intervention of a friend, who had given her a damp 
sponge through which to breathe for her salvation. 

In the punishment of crime, the Guanches were 
very lenient. Disrespect to women ranked high as 
a criminal offence. A homicide was merely ousted 
from his lands. When the sentence included corporal 
punishment, it was administered with the royal 
sceptre — the thigh bone of a king. But it was also 
customary, immediately after the flogging, to apply 



CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 



77 



healing ointments to the bruises inflicted by such a 
hard rod. 

House-breaking was a capital crime in Fuerteven- 
tura and Grand Canary ; and also theft, rape, 
perjury, and homicide. The felon in such cases was 
laid flat on the ground, with a rock under the 
shoulder-blades, and the professional butchers beat 
in his breast-bone with stones, so as to crush his 
heart into his ribs. 

In Hierro, moreover, the "lex talionis " applied to 
bodily injuries. 

But perhaps the humanity of the Guanches is 
best shown by their method of punishing certain 
Spaniards whom they took prisoners during the 
war of the conquest. They set them to wash the 
goats, and kill the flies that worried them. Such 
menial offices were a supreme degradation. This 
intolerance of bloodshed also made them keep their 
butchers as a clan apart, ostracized by the nature of 
their work, but fully provided with all the necessaries 
of life. 

Though the islands of the archipelago are so near 
each other, the islanders held remarkably divergent 
opinions about the same action. Thus, while in 
Hierro a thief was deprived of one eye for the first 
offence, the other eye for a second offence, and so on, 
until the rogue had nothing but a sentient trunk re- 
maining, in Palma, as in Sparta, the man was most 
esteemed who could lift cattle with the greatest 
dexterity. I am indeed disposed to think badly of 
the natives of Palma from first to last. They did 
not resist the Spaniards very valorously ; they were 



78 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



reputed a melancholy people, in uncommon subjection 
to their women, who were, to the eye, as well made 
and capable as the men. 

It has been said that a man is known by his dress, 
iln truth, however, the climate rather than the 
character is betrayed by a study of national costume. 
Thus we find among the Canaries that in Lanzarote, 
the most easterly island, nakedness, except as to the 
shoulders, was the fashion ; whereas in Tenerife, 
the inhabitants of which were habituated to the 
look, if not to the sensation, of snow, no one went 
out of doors unattired in the tamarco, a species of 
mantle worn over the sleeveless chemise reaching 
to the hips, and common to men and women alike. 
Viera attributes the morality of the Guanches in a 
measure to the length of their skirts. Strangely 
enough, a certain tribe of Central Africa, among whom 
immorality is very rare, explain this by the fact that 
their unmarried women go about in a state of 
nudity. 

The natives of Grand Canary were the most osten- 
tatious in their attire. They dyed their goat-skins, and 
worked them into helmets, as well as long-fringed and 
decorated gowns. In Fuerteventura, feathers were 
worn in the caps. Sheep-skins, unshorn, were the 
fashion in Hierro ; the woolly side served for the 
winter, and in summer the coat was reversed. 

Pedro Bontier and Juan le Verrier, the two chap- 
lains who accompanied Bethencourt in his invasion of 
the Canaries in 1402, have left us a record of their 
comparative opinion of the islanders. As a whole, 
they considered them the finest people in the world ; 



SOME CANARIAN CUSTOMS. 



79 



but doubtless they wrote with a very limited know- 
ledge of the world. The natives of Lanzarote and 
Fuerteventura were compassionate, though stern ; 
friendly and sociable ; and fond of dancing and music. 
Those of Gomera were clever at feats of skill and 
the chase. Hierro shared with Palma a people of 
melancholy temperament. The Grand Canarians 
were lively, brave, and amiable, though, according to 
European judgment, treacherous. The Guanches 
were strong, active, warlike, modest, generous, and 
honourable. 

Fuerteventura boasted of a giant twenty-two feet 
high, and in Tenerife a Guanche of royal blood was 
said to be fourteen feet in height, and furnished with 
eighty teeth. 

Lanzarote and Gomera were singular in certain 
matters. The women of the former island were said 
to be without bosoms : they gave their lips to their 
children to suck, which much deformed their appear- 
ance. In Gomera, moreover, it was civil to offer a 
stranger refreshment of women's milk. 

Physically, all the Canarians were robust and long 
lived. They fed simply, and were abstemious in their 
medicines. Gofio, the national food (flour of maize, 
pease, barley, lupins, beans, &c), and the meat of 
their flocks, gave them all the solid nourishment they 
needed. In Tenerife they used to roast their meat 
until it was almost black — when, in their opinion, it 
was most nutritious and palatable. Rancid goat's 
butter was the foundation of most of their medica- 
ments. Whey served as a cathartic. They combated 
with honey the colics and diarrhoea which were 



8o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



troublesome then as now in the islands. Surgical 
operations were performed with knives of obsidian. 
Sosa, writing in 1678, says that in his day the same 
rude knives were used, and used successfully, in the 
country districts of Grand Canary, for letting blood, 
and for chirurgery in general. 

Thus the islanders lived happily to the age of a 
hundred, or thereabouts. Only in Palma do we hear 
of them anticipating the summons of nature, near the 
close of life. Here, when an invalid came to the con- 
clusion that death was preferable to life, he convoked 
his friends and relatives, and told them that he wished 
to die. They seem to have regarded such a wish 
as unalterable ; for the sick man was promptly carried 
to a cave, laid on a pile of skins, with a jug of milk 
by his head. The mouth of the cave was then blocked 
up, and the invalid was left to die in solitude. 

The dwellings of the Canarians were as simple as 
their manner of life. Caves abound in the volcanic 
tufa of the islands, and they were largely in- 
habited. 

To this day, on the south side of Tenerife, and else- 
where in the other islands, thousands of the people 
make these caves into commodious homes, delight- 
fully cool in the summer heats. Small huts, thatched 
with straw or boughs, and centring round a natural 
palm-trunk, were also used. In Lanzarote and Fuer- 
teventura, the portals of the dwellings were some- 
times fancifully chiselled ; but their entrances were 
so diminutive that it was necessary to crawl through 
them ; and the smell within, from deficient ventila- 
tion, and their habit of curing meat in the living 



DOMESTIC FURNITURE. 



8 



apartments, was disagreeable. In Hierro they built 
round houses of stone, roofed and thatched with 
boughs and straw. 

The furniture of these primitive abodes was not 
luxurious. A hand mill for the gofio was essential. 
This consisted of two round stones, such as are still 
in common use among the Canarian peasantry. The 
beds were of straw, and they and the stone seats 
which served them for chairs were bespread with 
skins. Sea shells made capital spoons. Fish bones 
or palm spines were worked into needles. The 
horns of goats made rude but strong small ploughs. 
Splinters of pine were natural torches — still much in 
request. Earthen pots of an uncouth kind were 
easily made. Add to these trifles, the kid skins for 
holding the gofio, cords of gut, and the various 
weapons of the country (clubs studded with flints, 
lances and javelins with fire-hardened points, shields 
of dragon-wood, axes of obsidian, &c.) and the house- 
hold furniture was complete. It is doubtful if fer- 
mented liquor was known to them. The Guanches 
at any rate drank nothing but water ; and, to preserve 
their teeth, they took this, not at meal-times, but 
half an hour afterwards. 

The Guanches, strange to say, seem to have had 
no method of expressing their ideas or thoughts in 
writing, glyphical or otherwise. The solitary dis- 
covery of anything of this kind in the archipelago was 
made in 1762, when some inscribed basaltic rocks 
were found over a cave in Palma. Here in Tacoronte 
is a copy of these hieroglyphics, Which will probably 
remain a puzzle to antiquarians to the end of time. 

7 



82 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



A modern Spanish writer sees in them " the general 
epitaph upon the sepulchre of the entire extinct race 
of the primitive Palma people." This is conjectural, 




Facsimiles of the inscriptions on the basaltic stones over the cave of 
Belmaco, in the island of Palma : assumed to have been the dwelling- 
place of the princes of Tigalate, one of the twelve royal provinces into 
which the island was divided. The stones were found in 1762. 



of course, and it is more than possible that their 
true purport is not of so exalted a character. 

In concluding this concise record of the manners 



CANARIAN ATHLETICS. 



S3 



and life of the old Canarians, two or three illustra- 
tions of the muscular force and agility of these people 
may prove that the Spaniards were likely to find 
the acquisition of the Fortunate Isles a task less easy 
than they, not unreasonably, expected to find it. 

The Grand Canarians were trained from babyhood 
to be brisk in self-defence. As soon as they could 
toddle, they were pelted with earth balls, that they 
might learn how to protect themselves. When they 
were boys, stones and wooden darts were substituted 
for the bits of clay. In this school they acquired the 
rudiments which enabled them, during their wars 
with the Spaniards, to catch in their hands the 
arrows shot from their enemies' crossbows. 

After the conquest a Canarian was seen at Seville, 
who, for a shilling, let a man throw as many stones at 
him as he pleased, from a distance of eight paces. 
Without moving his left foot, he avoided every stone. 

Another Canarian used to defy any one to hurl an 
orange at him with such rapidity that he could not 
catch it. Three men tried this, each with a dozen 
oranges, and the islander caught every orange. On 
the same understanding, he hit his antagonists with 
each of the oranges. Thus disciplined, would not 
the Canarians have made the best cricketers in the 
world ? 

In the eastern islands, the natives were so agile 
that many of them could achieve a high jump of not 
less than seven to eight feet. 

Athletic exercises were as much favoured by the 
Canarians as by the Greeks. They held periodical 
games, which were esteemed so important that a 



34 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



truce suspended any wars the nation might be en- 
gaged in. Guests were invited, and the popular 
attention was wholly devoted to the dances, wrestling 
matches, races, stone throwing, jumping, and weight 
lifting, which were their favourite tests of strength 
and nimbleness. The games were enlivened by 
music, which varied in the different isles. Sosa says 
"the melodies of the natives of Hierro affected the 
bowels of hearers in a singularly sympathetic way." 
In Grand Canary, on the other hand, the style was 
light and cheerful. 

These games were interspersed with a certain 
number of tournaments, between individuals, which 
had first to be licensed by the Faycan or high priest. 
The combatants were rubbed with fat and the juice 
of herbs, and, for the improvement of their muscles, 
hugged the trunks of trees. In due time, they entered 
the arena, attended by their respective friends and 
relations, and took their stand on a small circular 
platform about a yard above the level of the ground. 
Here they were visible to all the surrounders. 
Then, each taking a staff with a nob at the end, three 
smooth flint pebbles, and some sharper bits of stone, 
they began their duel. Their skill in avoiding the 
stones and blows aimed at each other was extra- 
ordinary, and it is credible that the spectators were 
the first- to weary of the monotony of their futile 
attacks. When this was so, or when one of the 
combatants broke his club, the chief warrior who 
presided at the tournament cried, "enough ! enough ! " 
and the contest ended with lasting honour to both of 
them. 



THE RELICS OF THE GUANCHES. 



85 



I suppose there is a certain amount of affectation 
or insincerity in the common phrases used to express 
regret for the extinction of this or that race of noble 
savages. The weakness is sentimental and momen- 
tary. But if ever it were worth while to wish for a 
revival of an uncivilized state of being, methinks one 
might welcome a resurrection of the Guanches. 

As it is, however, they are hopelessly dead. These 
uncomely mummies ; the messes in jars and bottles, 
covered with the dust and congelation of ages ; the 
black clubs upon the walls, ludicrously trivial by the 
side of the repeating rifles and revolvers of this 
century ; and the jars, skins, and grindstones of their 
simple domestic life : these trifles in the Tacoronte 
Museum, and the myriads of bones littering the caves 
of the land, are the sole remains of them. 

They have been reproached for their feudal form 
of society and government — at the same time that 
they have been praised for their Arcadian simplicity 
and happiness. It is only among such races as the 
Guanches that feudalism and happiness can co-exist. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The Gardens of Acclimatization — Eccentric trees and shrubs — - 
The dragon tree — Orotava Villa — The private gardens of 
the Villa — The Castillo monument — The Villa Church de 
la Concepcion — The Dominican nuns and the Jesuit fathers 
— Periodical eruptions of Teide — Philosophy of life in the 
Villa. 

From Puerto I rode again and again up the steep, 
slippery, lava-paved highway to the Villa of Orotava. 
In two miles we rise two thousand feet. By con- 
tinuing past the Villa to the top of the faldas or 
slopes of Tenerife's backbone, in six miles the rise 
would be six to seven thousand feet. 

It was reckoned a feat of fair endurance to walk to 
the Villa on a bright afternoon. The sun then made 
nothing of the attempts of the palms, eucalypti, and fig 
trees to throw shade upon the road ; and one envied 
the lizards that slid like quicksilver to and fro about 
the crannies of the walls, charmed with the heat. 
White dresses and parasols could not save the ladies 
from evident exhaustion ; and gentlemen, with green 
umbrellas and pith helmets, were commonly to be 
seen resting heavily here and there at different stages 
of the ascent. 

The famous Botanical Gardens — or Gardens of 



ORIGIA OF THE GARDENS. 



89 



Acclimatization — stand between the two towns, 
about 650 feet above the sea-level. They are en- 
closed within palings fit for the Brobdignagians, but 
their cool luxuriance of shade was always welcome 
with suggestions of a halt amid the strange trees 
and flowers which have given them a world-wide 
reputation. 

These gardens owe their origin to the Marquis 
de Villanueva del Prado, Governor-General of the 
Canaries late in the eighteenth century. It was 
thought that, by judicious transplantation from zone 
to zone, the vegetation of the tropics might eventually 
be brought to so robust a condition that it would 
thrive in Norway as in Brazil. Tenerife offered an 
excellent preliminary stage for this experiment. At 
first there was lively hope. The plants of the 
Equator took kindly to the climate of Orotava. 
But, subsequently, the visionary nature of the 
scheme became evident. Transfer after transfer 
was made from Tenerife to Spain, apparently a step 
of less consequence than from latitude o° to latitude 
28 ; but these transplantations were unsuccessful. 
And it is now acknowledged that such acclimatization 
is only possible along the same isothermal lines. 
The Botanical Gardens of Orotava are therefore 
merely a picturesque failure. The Spanish authori- 
ties think they are doing enough in maintaining this 
chimera at a cost of about £40 per annum to the 
clever botanist who has it under his care. A sum of 
£200 annually is voted towards it, but of this the 
bulk goes in expenses which do not benefit the 
gardens or the gardener. Thus this unique place 



yo 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



is neglected ; and in the hands of a man less enthu- 
siastic than M. Wildpret, it would soon become a 
jungle. 

What curious and magnificent specimens of the 
world's trees and flowers one sees here ! March is 
not the time for fruit, else I might have eaten custard 
apples and mangoes as if I were in India or the 
Sandwich Islands. Each hot country of the world 
seems to have contributed a different kind of palm to 
the gardens. There are trees with fruit and flowers 
germinating in the most erratic manner. One, a single 
trunk about ten feet high, terminates skywards in 
a spiral salmon-coloured blossom. Others extrude 
flowers — crimson, blue, yellow, purple, &c. — in im- 
possible places like the tips of the leaves. The 
Australian fig tree (Ficus impcrialis), a giant fellow, 
has clusters of hard figs round the base of the trunk, 
where it rises from the ground. The caoutchouc is 
as much at home here as in the East ; and the 
banyan tree, with its bevy of connected saplings, 
sheltering under it like chickens under the hen. As 
for the eucalypti and pines of various kinds, the 
difficulty is not to induce them to grow, but to 
prevent them from injuring other plants by their 
exuberance. 

These gardens are a true banquet of the senses. 
To the Spaniards of the district, however, they are, 
perhaps, more interesting as a rendezvous for occa- 
sional concerts. At such a time one may admire, 
under brilliant conditions, the grace of movement 
of the Spanish ladies in full toilet. But con- 
ceive how one is likely to be blind to the charms 




A DRAGON TREE. 



THE DRAGON TREE. 



93 



of the brightest of eyes, when the cheeks beneath 
them are smeared with powder ! Under the garish 
noontide sun, these girls, in spite of their actual 
innocence and beauty, impressed me like a troop of 
unfortunates patrolling between the London lamp- 
posts, The peasant women, in their bright-coloured 
silk head-dresses, and natural brown, were, on the 
other hand, attractive enough. And it was delight- 
ful to watch their excitement when, at intervals 
during the afternoon, common paper balloons were, 
with immense fuss, filled, and sent into the air by 
the public functionaries. 

But of all the odd trees in the Orotava Gardens, 
if not in the world, the dragon tree (Dracczna draco) 
is perhaps the oddest. It is common in the islands, but 
uncommon elsewhere. Early in this century, in the 
garden of the Marquis de Sauzal, in the Villa, there 
stood one of these trees measuring 60 feet in height, 
48J feet in circumference at the base, and 23! feet 
nearly five yards from the ground. Humboldt com- 
puted its age at 10,000 years. No doubt he spoke 
at random ; but, as there exists a little dragon tree 
known to be 400 years old, and as this tree is not yet 
a foot in circumference, it. is clear the veteran had 
lived through many centuries. Since Humboldt's 
time, however, the tree has died of old age and 
storms, and only the memory of it remains. 

Many are the legends begotten of the dragon tree 
in the Canaries. It is supposed to have a close 
interest in the country and people round about its 
trunk. When it blossoms (which it does but seldom), 
a good harvest and myriads of common flowers are 



94 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



anticipated. When it bleeds, misfortune threatens 
the community or individuals. 1 And when it falls, I 
suppose the impending ruin is prodigious. 

Even as the Canary Islands are said to be the 
Gardens of the Hesperides, so the dragon tree is 
identified with the dragon that guards the golden 
apples of these happy realms. The golden apples 
are somewhat tamely associated with the modern 
orange. 

One antiquarian discerns the outline of a dragon 
in the pulp of the fruit of this tree. A French writer 
goes further, and avers that the tree is no tree, but 
a congregation of living animalcule, 6,000,000 of 
which go to a cubic inch. Such bizarre tricks will 
the imagination play even the best controlled of in- 
tellects ! 

But, in truth, the tree seems to be merely a 
mammoth breed of asparagus, gifted with extreme 
longevity. As for the dragon's blood, that is the 
reddish sap of the tree. This resinous exusion, 
which oozes easily from a knife-cut, was for long one 
of the most valuable of the island exports. European 
apothecaries — attracted by the name — had as strong 
a fancy for it as for the Guanche mummies, which 
they beat with their pestles into various disagreeable 
medicines of price. 

In appearance, the dragon tree is a symmetrical 
candelabra. The corrugated trunk rises free from 
branches until it attains a certain altitude. Then 
the boughs diverge with extreme regularity, and in 

1 " Cuando la sangre del drago salta, 
Llegar la desdicha nunca falta." 



OROTAVA VILLA. 



95 



their turn beget symmetrical twigs, tufted with sharp 
olive-coloured leaves. In justice to the tree, and in 
the face of its fabulous credentials, I ought to add 
that toothpicks made from its timber are reputed to 
be good for the gums. 1 

From the Acclimatization Gardens it is a steep 
but beautiful stroll to the Villa. M. Leclerq, in the 
pleasant account of his impressions of Tenerife, 
writes of this part as " une debauche de vegetation." 
It is truly a debauch of the most enjoyable kind. 
Not even Corfu, with its high hedges of roses, can 
compare with the road beneath the Villa of Orotava 
for the luxuriance of its blossoms. 

Orotava — the Arautapala of the Guanches — was 
the place in all Tenerife most favoured by the 
Spaniards. The noblest of De Lugo's followers 
received allotments here after the conquest: Trujillo, 
Joven, Valdes, Vina, Gallego, Medina, &c, are some 
of the names that have helped to raise Orotava in its 
own and its neighbours' esteem. So early as 1522 
the town had a reputation for good blood, and 
thereafter it continued to keep its celebrity by the 
magnificence of its residents and the number of con- 
ventual establishments it erected and supported. 

Nowadays, to the visitor who goes through its 
steep grassy streets, mindful of its past fortunes, 
Orotava is hardly less forlorn than Laguna. Its 
monastic houses have fallen to ruin, or been turned 
to secular purposes ; many of its ancient nobility 

1 The dragon's blood was also one of the ingredients in the dye 
used by the Venetian ladies in the production of their famous 
golden hair. 



9 6 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



have vanished ; others have fallen in the world like 
the monasteries, and, though they still live in their 
ancestral houses, with imposing armorial bearings 
over the portals, they have perforce put aside the 
exclusiveness of the grandee, and turned their atten- 
tion to trade and the science of money-making. 

Among the few nobles still in Orotava are the 
Marquis de Sauzal, whose name will long be coupled 
with the phenomenal dragon tree already mentioned; 
and the Marquis de la Candia, whose family name 
of Cologan shows that Ireland has a prior claim to 
him. To the transitory visitor, these gentlemen are 
merely the proprietors of beautiful gardens, which, 
with a large generosity, they open to strangers as 
freely as to themselves. But the man who is privi- 
leged to make their acquaintance in domestic life 
will remember them for other reasons. I hope I 
may not soon forget the dark eyes and sweet expres- 
sion of Donna Eustachia, the younger daughter of 
the house of Cologan, or the wit and vivacity of 
Donna Beatrix, the elder. These ladies themselves 
acted as bright cicerones through their gardens. 
There was much to see, and notably the famous 
chestnut tree dating from the conquest, which has 
died twice, and twice has renewed its life from the 
heart of the ruin. The bulk of its timber is im- 
mense, and so graciously contorted that the artist 
who sees it, and does not immediately want to make 
a drawing of it, is reckoned to be a very insensible 
creature. 

The garden of the Marquis de Sauzal is even more 
interesting, as a garden, than that of the Cologans. 



THE FREEMASON'S TOMB. 97 



But methought the liberality of its owner was some- 
what abused by the invasion of it, through the 
marble halls of the dwelling-house, by a knot of 
ragged little boys, who sought for pence by showing 
us its treasures, and who picked nosegays of rare 
exotics, and offered them to us with as much courtesy 
as impudence. 

One more of the many gardens which make the 
Villa so enchanting must be mentioned. This is 
really a beautiful terrace of flowers looking down to 
the sea, all devoted to the embellishment of a single 
tomb. The tomb is of Carrara marble, dome-shaped, 
replete with exquisite detail, and approached by a 
stately tier of steps. But the occupant does not yet 
inhabit the monument, though he died five years 
ago. The work is said to have cost $100,000. The 
dead man, however, was a freemason ; and the 
Church withheld the licence necessary for an inter- 
ment of this kind. The bitterness of the inscription 
on the tomb may be forgiven to the mother of the * 
man it commemorates — 

" Mater ejus Domina D. Sebastiana del Castillo 
Hoc monumentum vovet, velut tarn cari capitis 
Desiderio solatium datum et compensationem injuriae 
Ouam hinc Christiano benigno prsedito ingenio nobilique 
lam mortuo conata est inferre intolerandia religiosa. 

Anno MDCCCLXXXIL" 

To my mind, the church of Orotava is the most 
pleasing in the island. Its exterior, thanks to the 
dome and turrets, and the elaborate, if rather gross, 
sculpture on its facade, is more imposing than the 

8 



9 8 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



Cathedral of Laguna ; and its proportions are good 
throughout. The old frescoes in the dome are 
curious — especially the one symbolical of the wash- 
ing away of the sins of the world through the blood 
of Christ. The Virgin holds the child Jesus, while 
crimson streams flow from His hands and feet and 
side over a blue globe beneath Him. The virtues 
and vices are also boldly depicted in allegory. Near 
the pulpit — itself a gem of simple design, there is 
some graceful originality in the sculptor's work. 
The base of the columns is chiselled into banana 
leaves and pods ; they are so good that an acanthus 
would make but a poor figure by the side of them. 
In the Sauzal Chapel, to the north of the building, 
moreover, there is some woodwork, richly gilt, behind 
and over the altar, which makes one think highly of 
the Spanish artificers of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. The life of the Virgin is depicted on this 
screen, wholly in carved work — the annunciation, 
conception, circumcision, &c. The church is dedi- 
cated to the Conception, and dates from the begin- 
ning of the sixteenth gentury. Proclamations of 
rejoicing for the accession of Charles V. to the 
throne were made here on the 22nd June, 15 16, as 
well as in Laguna. 

Viera tells a story about the conduct of some 
Dominican nuns here, which gives a curious picture 
of earlier life in Orotava. These Jadies migrated 
from Laguna to Orotava in 1632, and lived in monastic 
ease in this fair valley for the term of their lives. 
Their successors had the misfortune to be burned out 
of their convent in 1717. For the ensuing year, they 



THE UNSCRUPULOUS NUNS. 



99 



accepted temporary quarters, though their distaste 
for these unconventual walls waxed stronger every 
day. It happened that there was in Orotava at that 
time a house of Jesuits which had lost its old impor- 
tance, and, though commodious and healthy, gave 
lodging to but two men, the Rector of the house, 
and his assistant. Upon this building, the nuns cast 
their eyes, and early one day a band of forty of them 
advanced against it, determined, if they could, to 
appropriate it. By strategy, they induced the Jesuit 
brother to open the outer gate, and then they all 
trooped into the courtyard, and fell upon their knees, 
to thank God for this preliminary success. Vain was 
it for the Rector to join his subordinate in earnestly 
representing to them what a scandal they were likely 
to cause by their behaviour. The nuns for the time 
put aside their more sacred character, and appeared 
merely as very resolute women, strong in the knowledge 
that they were as twenty to one in the trial of power 
that was at hand. " Father Andrew, this is a large 
cage for so few birds! " they exclaimed. A few, more 
reasonable, calmly explained that they were in real 
need of a house to hold forty or more, and that they 
hoped Father Andrew and his colleague would not 
refuse the "spouses of Jesus" this asylum that 
seemed meant for them. The Rector then fled to 
the sacristy, locking the door behind him. From 
this safe retreat, he exhorted his colleague to be of 
good cheer. " Patience, brother, and do your best 
to extricate yourself from those ladies." The un- 
supported and harassed brother, however, with diffi- 
culty saved himself from the nails of the excited nuns. 
LofC. 



IOO 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



This lasted for three or four hours. The town 
knew all about it, and bands of young men watched 
the proceedings from the bars of the outer gate, stu- 
diously neutral in their sympathies. But eventually 
the Jesuits had to yield, and abandon their building 
to the ladies, who continued to occupy it until a new 
convent to their taste was duly erected. 

The Villa has endured many worse experiences than 
this revolt of its nuns. Conflagrations have .lowered 
the pride of its buildings. Locusts have swarmed 
upon it, and eaten the vicinity as bare as a new-born 
babe. And, worst of all, earthquakes and volcanic 
eruptions, above or below it, have sent its inhabitants 
flying over the fields in terror ; and neither our Lady 
of Candelaria nor the Holy Eucharist, though with 
priestly pomp brought into their midst, have been 
able to comfort them, or avert the evil. For it can 
never be forgotten that Orotava lies at the foot 
of Teide. Whether the mountain be visible, or 
screened by clouds, one feels that it is near. About 
once in a century, 1 it breaks forth in eruption. 
From such perils, Orotava is fairly shielded by the 
great bar of mountains which enclose it. Else it 
were a sublime sight to see the lava fall in a 
fiery cascade over the lip of the rocks. As for 
the likelihood of the upheaval of another moun- 
tain in the valley itself, though it might burst 
up in the heart of the town (even as in Lanzarote, in 
182S, a volcano abruptly rose in the middle of a field 
of barley), no sensible resident will vex himself by 



1 1390, 1430, 1492* 1603, 1605, 1705, 1706, 1798. 



WISE INDIFFERENCE. 



103 



entertaining so very disquieting a fancy. A dweller 
on the thigh of an active volcano has no concern 
with the future. Thus the placid souls of the Villa 
fly kites against each other from the roofs of their 
houses, attend mass and the cockfights, love, eat, 
sing, and sleep, without a thought of what may at 
any moment come down upon them like the crack 
of doom. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A tour round Tenerife — The boys and the bell-tower — The con- 
figuration of Tenerife — Barrancos — Zones of temperature 
— Realejo, Upper and Lower — Bencomo and Realejo — The 
Church of Rambla — Icod — The dragon tree — The sad 
citizen — Garachico — The story of 1706 — The drunken 
prisoner — Sunset on the Peak — Playing the pedagogue. 

When first I projected my tour of the island, I had 
decided to go alone. It seemed both unwise and un- 
necessary to encumber myself with a guide — who 
was sure to be ignorant of the country he professed 
to know ; who might fall ill by the way, and require 
careful treatment ; and who would certainly be ham- 
pered by scruples, religious and otherwise, to deter 
us from entering a town or village at festival time. 
But Lorenzo Despacho, from whom I hired the mare, 
put pressure upon me. 

" It is fifty leagues, Senor. The mare is a good 
mare — Caramba ! though it is her master that says 
so. But suppose she lose a shoe ? " 

" In that case, my good Lorenzo, if she cannot 
proceed without it, we must replace it," said I. 

" Without doubt, Senor ; but how ? And who will 
look after her corn ? How will your worship know 
that she gets more than half what you pay for ? Not 



THE BOY JOSE. 



by the aspect of her stomach, Senor ; for it is a world 
not wholly good, and there are many bad ways of 
swelling the mare, without properly nourishing her. 
And perhaps — if I may be pardoned for saying so — 
you do not talk Spanish sufficiently well to relieve 
yourself from a difficulty when you are among 
strangers." 

" Well, in effect, what am I to do ? " 

" Take the boy Jose with you, Senor. He will be 
a comfort to you. Ave Maria ! I should think so. 
Whenever you are in trouble, with perhaps a broken 
leg or an arm, he will shout ; and the boy can make 
his sister, at work in the fields, a mile off, hear him 
quite distinctly. He will call to some one, and ask, 
and all will be well. As for the mare, she has an 
affection for Jose, and will do at his bidding what I 
do not think, Senor, she would do for you and the 
stick — good quiet horse that she is ! And for the 
cost, it shall be only a shilling the day the more, 
which is, of course, nothing." 

I did not want the boy, as I have said ; neverthe- 
less, he came. He was not quite new to me, for a 
day or two before, in visiting the parochial church of 
Puerto, I had seen him, in company with other little 
boys, amusing himself at the altar with a number of 
candles as long as his body. One of these boys, a 
child of twelve, had told me that he was the sacristan 
of the church, and in that capacity he showed me 
all the ecclesiastical treasures of the building, from 
the monster " Maria " behind the altar, already being 
robed in sad-coloured velvets for the stately proces- 
sions of Holy Week, to the little glass flagon, silver- 



io6 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



topped, containing the residue of some sacramental 
wine, much bescummed, which had been used I for- 
get how many years ago. When I had seen the 
church and its dull old pictures to my contentment, 
we all ascended to the bell tower, to look down upon 
the town. Here were three bells, the largest bearing 
date 1671 ; and I was so interested in this large bell 
that when the boy Jose suggested that I should sound 
it, I did not hesitate to swing the tongue against the 
sides in the common way. The tone was loud and mel- 
lifluous; but on hearing it all the boys, headed by the 
sacristan, fled down the steps, gasping with mirth. 
However, as it was nothing to me if I had given un- 
timely warning of some holy hour, I stayed among 
the bells until I had seen enough of the town, and 
then descended, and went off to my hotel. From this 
experience, I fancied that Jose might prove a rogue. 
On the contrary, however, for in the matter of separa- 
ting his hours of business from his hours of play, he 
was a boy singularly gifted. 

We started betimes on a sunny March morning. 
The mare took kindly to me from the outset, and I 
shall have nothing but praise to say of her. Jose 
carried my knapsack ; for it was unbecoming in a 
caballero to be burdened with aught save a bit of 
stick tufted with horsehair, to use in warfare with the 
flies. The boy wore his yellow leather boots until 
we were out of the town. Then he slung them over 
his shoulder instead, and chanted disturbing mad- 
rigals at the top of his voice. I learnt to know that 
whenever I wished to depress the boy's spirits, I had 
but to tell him to get into his boots. Instantly there- 



OUTLINE OF TENERIFE. 



09 



after his lip fell, and in glum silence he trudged in 
the track of the mare, with the nerveless swing of a 
south country tramp who has seen all his bright days. 
But as on such occasions he became also very 
thickheaded, failing to understand the simplest re- 
mark, however well accented, I was generally as 
willing to have him barefooted as he was glad to be so. 

A few additional words about the configuration 
and natural scenery of Tenerife are, I think, here 
needful for the better understanding of the scheme 
and pleasures of our little tour. The importance 
of the Peak is already made plain. Some geologists 
say indeed, that the Peak is all the island, that from 
the shoreline of the entire fifty leagues of circuit, the 
land moulds itself upwards simply and solely to help 
in the achievement of the Peak, its pinnacle. But 
this is a disputed point, soluble only by a very minute 
investigation into the nature and age of the various 
mountain masses of Tenerife. The Peak is thought 
to be a very steep hill. In fact, however, the average 
angle of its acclivity from the sea-level to the sum- 
mit does not exceed 12 or 13 . The ascent begins at 
Puerto, about twelve miles distant from the sugar 
cone, which is the top of it. It is this cone that one 
sees from the Atlantic, fifty or a hundred miles 
away. The rest of the island is usually mantled in 
the clouds which Teide draws around its loins during 
the greater part of the year. And it is the aspect of 
the abrupt isolated cone, suspended between heaven 
and earth, that makes one think the mountain must 
be a very complete test of the pluck and tenacity of 
a climber. 



no 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



The scenery of Tenerife is uniquely varied. You 
may choose your climate on this small island 
in the Atlantic as emphatically as if you had a 
continent at your disposal ; and of course the 
vegetation varies with the temperature. In Puerto, 
for example, we lived amid palms, bananas and 
flowering oleanders. Here the heat, even in March, 
after early morning, made movement laborious. Not 
that the thermometer marked a high register. But 
the air is so dry, that one's strength seemed to 
evaporate from the body in quest of the moisture it 
would like, but cannot get. We lived under sub- 
tropical conditions. 

But at an altitude of 3,000 feet above Puerto, the 
climate is, of course, colder and more bracing. From 
potatoes and apple orchards, one looks down at the 
sunlit rocks and sands of Orotava, a singular con- 
trast to the grey gloom of the cloud which up here 
hangs motionless and indissoluble for days at a time. 

In this zone of country, the goats of Tenerife live 
and thrive. They descend daily to the coast towns 
to be milked, and then again climb the weary hills 
to feed themselves fitly for the morrow's milking. 

Above this zone of chestnut and apple trees is the 
zone of laurels. After the laurels come the heaths, 
growing gigantic at a height of from four to five 
thousand feet above the sea. The bright yet low 
Canarian pines (Pinus Canaricnsis) follow the heaths, 
and struggle into life among the arid disintegrating 
lava and powdered pumice which here cover the hot 
rocks. 

But when we have left the red roofs of Orotava 



BARRANCOS. Ill 



about 7,000 feet below us, and have also overtopped 
the very cloud which girdles the island, there is no 
vegetation to cheer the eye save the silver-grey 
bushes of the retama [Spartium nubigenum). The 
Peak rises from the centre of a parching infertile 
plateau of yellow pumice sand about twenty miles in 
circuit. In the whole of this elevated expanse, there 
is not one habitation. The solitary traveller who, 
from fatigue or other disabling cause, here chanced 
to die, might, by the action of the sun, and the pure 
desiccating air, be transformed into an excellent 
mummy, ere a wandering goatherd, a iievcro (snow- 
gatherer), or a sulphur worker discovered his body. 

One other characteristic of the country must be 
noticed — the barrancos. These deep cuts in the 
body of the land radiate from the old crater or 
plateau from which the cone of the Peak ascends, and 
they terminate only at the coast. I do not know 
how many dozen of them there are on the north-west 
and south sides of the island, with depths to be 
bottomed by the traveller varying from about 
fifteen hundred to two thousand feet. Some are 
dug with sides nearly perpendicular. In such 
cases, the track of descent and ascent is a perilous 
zigzag path scratched in the rock walls — a path 
moreover which the prickly pear trees do their 
best to expunge by the persistency with which 
they mat their formidable arms across it. It is 
prudent to leave horse or mule to itself in these 
bavvancos : one's own feet are a sufficiently onerous 
responsibility. And, that the stranger may have his 
blood upon his own head, if he determine to be reck- 



112 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



less in these ravines, sundry rude little crosses 
appear in awkward places, to commemorate this or 
that fatal accident ; and the peasant whom destiny 
has given you for a temporary roadfellow, will enu- 
merate those of his acquaintance who have fallen 
over the rocks into the dry blue river bed six or 
seven hundred feet down — just as you might fall if 
you slipped to the left that self-same moment. When 
I had made acquaintance with two or three of the 
barrancos of Tenerife, I began to bless Lorenzo that 
he had given me Jose to hold the mare. 

But we were spared these particular trials on the 
first day of our journey. We were to sleep at a 
little town called Icod, whither the high road goes 
nearly all the way. For the most part, we kept about 
a thousand feet above the sea, with a wall of rock 
many hundred feet high on the left hand, and, on the 
right, a jungle of useful vegetation to the shoreline. 
Maiden hair and other ferns grew large from the 
midst of a hanging garden of brambles, wild vines, 
scrub fig and caroub, and the water drops dripped 
from the leaves into a careful canal which dispersed 
the precious liquor among the beans, potatoes, and 
bananas on the other side of the road. 

There are two pucblocitos or small towns, be- 
tween Orotava and Icod — Realejo and Rambla. 
Realejo is built well up a steep slope, with a 
ravine crossing the slope, and dividing the town into 
two parts. It is a pretty place, with its white church 
tower rising above the houses, and the eccentric 
branches of its dragon trees one over the other* 
Its warm climate is shown in the wealth of its 



REALEJO. 



greenery and magnificent trees. The church of the 
lower town is interesting for the queer carved heads 
on its portal, and for its very extraordinary picture 
on the ordinary subject of the world to come. In 
this picture, men and women are seen up to their 
girths in the fires of hell, looking as much at home 
with each other, and the element to which they are 
condemned, as a group of French people in the sea at 
Boulogne. 

The two villages of Upper and Lower Realejo are 
built on the site of prime incidents in the history of 
the conquest. Bencomo, the king of Taoro, and 
chief prince of Tenerife, had retreated before De 
Lugo and his Spaniards, to this the extremity of his 
principality. For two years he had held the 
Spaniards at bay. But the terrible pestilence of 
Laguna, which carried off thousands of Guanches in 
a few weeks, made the rest of the natives weak, and 
an easy prey to the scientific blockade which, later, 
the leader of the invaders instituted. After the 
pestilence, and thanks to it, the Spaniards held the 
land at their mercy. But, for a crowning combat, the 
two armies — of Guanches armed with clubs, obsidian 
axes, and fire-hardened javeJins of wood ; and of 
Spaniards in coats of mail, leathern jerkins, and 
with all the weapons of contemporary European 
usage — put themselves into position on this slope, 
about 800 feet above the sea. 

Realejo is the Spanish for " camp." And it was 
here, where the spire of the church of Upper 
Realejo marks the land, that poor old Bencomo 
determined to arrest further slaughter of his people 

9 



U4 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



by resigning his realm to the king of Spain, on con- 
dition that the Guanche natives were not despoiled 
of their property, and by accepting the baptism that 
the Spaniards pressed upon him as one of the chief 
articles in his bond of surrender. But it is veiy 
absurd of Viana to make the Guanche king express 
joy in his abdication of sovereignty, and a humble ac- 
knowledgment of the superior claims of Ferdinand of 
Spain to the island of the great Tinerfe — " Though 
I lose in temporal things, I gain in eternal glory. . . . 
Ferdinand alone is worthy of being king here ; and 
though I am unworthy to be his vassal, I am more 
honoured in obeying him than in being king of 
Tenerife. . . ." In fact, however, the generous 
monarch paid the penalty for his confidence in the 
words of the Spaniards. They took him to Europe, 
against his wishes, where he graced the triumph of 
De Lugo, and afterwards died. If Viana, in his 
eccentric epic, narrating the love of Dacil. Bencomo's 
daughter, for Castillo, a lieutenant in De Lugo's 
army, had been able to tell us the real history of the 
end of the king of Taoro, I doubt not the pathos of it 
would have been in singular contrast to the inflated 
cantos in which he describes the king's gratitude for 
and appreciation of his baptism. 

Once only on our way to Icod did we descend to 
the sea-level. This was at the cheerless little town 
of Rambla. It is built on a black promontory of 
lava, the rough edges and scoriae of which are dismal 
to behold. Nevertheless, it is not wholly a place of 
gloom. For the blue sea was breaking into white 
foam upon its distorted rocks, and the industry of 




BALCONY IN SAN JUAN DE LA RAMBLA. 



THE CHURCH OF RAMBLA. 



117 



the townspeople had erected gardens in the middle 
of this small wilderness ; so that the bright verdure 
of vines, maize and potatoes, w T ith the dull red roofs 
of the houses, and the olive and grey balconies, made 
a show of colour. Inland, we could track the lava 
flow up the mountain side, until it was lost to sight 
among the spurs of the Peak. But, in fact, the two 
leagues of coast between Rambla and Garachico, 
which is beyond Icod, is a tract of land terribly 
ruined by the outflows from Teide at one time or 
another. The road winds between monster cinder- 
heaps, which recall the banks in our own Black 
Country. But the heat of this unshaded expanse is 
hotter than Staffordshire at its hottest ; nor can our 
Black Country show the prickly pear and aloes which 
grow between the charred and decomposing boulders 
of this forlorn part of Tenerife. 

I visited the church of Rambla, but with no lively 
expectations. As a rule, the church architecture of 
Tenerife has little originality. It is the ambition of 
every small town to have a fine bell-tower, in which 
the boys may stand to knock the bells at their con- 
venience. After the bell-tower, I think an altar to 
the Virgin " de la Concepcion " is most fancied. I 
wonder how many of these figures I have seen in 
the Canaries, all modelled upon Murillo's beautiful 
Virgin in the Louvre Gallery, but with such variety 
of execution and adornment ! S. Lorenzo is another 
famous subject for a local altar, and the statue is 
sometimes provided with a large gridiron that could 
only have come from a Birmingham factory. 

Here at Rambla, however, I was suddenly im- 



n8 



\THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



mersed in an atmosphere of perfume, when I pushed 
aside the heavy wooden door. It was the Friday 
before Palm Sunday ; and in preparation for the day 
the pavement was littered with the petals of roses 
and red geraniums, and the many little altars of 
this little church were bedecked with boughs of 
bloom of various kinds. A number of women were 
kneeling among the rose leaves, and, in the far 
end, by the altar, there peeped from the eave of his 
confessional the round head of a priest, who was 
listening to the murmur of a penitent at his feet. 

Of course the ladies for the moment forgot their 
devotions when they saw a man in riding dress and 
heavy boots come crushing amid the flowers on the 
floor. They fell a whispering and fanning themselves, 
and those of them who were very far gone in world- 
liness touched their faces, to ascertain if the powder 
still lay upon their cheeks in a comely manner. But, 
in justice to them and the father in his confessional, 
who peered forth several times with an unamiable 
expression on his broad countenance, and in justice 
to myself also, I did not stay long in the little church. 
Such a curious, unreal, mannikin place of worship 
I never saw before. From the coro in the west, 
with its banisters spotted with white mould, and its 
rafters a dull scarlet, green, and gold, to the flash of 
the same colours in the east of the church, with a 
little blue added to the prevalent green and gold, the 
whole seemed to me like a somewhat stale old dolls' 
house of a large size, with groups of eccentric moveable 
dolls set about the pavement. The very lintel of the 
porch, and the crossbeams within the church, were 



THE ICOD INN 



119 



coloured with dry rot, and the flags under my feet 
oscillated as I moved from one to another. The dust 
of the early Spaniards who lay under the loose 
stones of the nave must long ago have evaporated 
among the congregation, and got re-incorporated with 
them. 

It was one o'clock before the mare set her hoofs 
upon the slippery grass-grown cobbles of the streets 
of Icod. Though we had done but half a day's 
work, we were all tired — the animal of the rough 
dusty track and the flies ; I of the heat of the sun, 
and the labour entailed in freeing her from the more 
venomous of the flies ; and Jose of an empty 
stomach. To the Plaza de la Concepcion, where 
there is an inn, we therefore made our anxious way, 
for the time heedless of the beauty of the town 
and its surroundings. 

The landlady proved to be a kind soul, and a little 
more resolute than a Spanish hotel-keeper is wont 
to be in the welcome of a guest to the bare boards 
of his building. A bedroom was at my disposal. It 
contained nothing in the world save a couple of 
small beds, and a coruscating chromo of the Virgin ; 
but, as she said, what more was wanted? And, while 
my breakfast was being prepared, I might choose 
between the salon adjoining the bedroom, where was 
a dusty sofa on unsound legs, some chairs, and a 
large mirror covered with tinsel to protect it from 
the flies, and the roof of the hotel, a promenade 
renowned for its splendour. 

Indeed, once I was on this roof, I was ready to 
vie with any one in praise of Icod. It has a won- 



120 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



derful situation, on the actual northern slope of the 
Peak. Imagine a glacial mass proceeding straight 
from the summit of a mountain to the sea, 
between high precipitous rocks, and with a town 
built on it, half-way in its course. Such, in some 
sort, is the aspect of Icod. In a direct line, the cone 
of the Peak cannot be more than six or seven miles 
from the houses of the town ; and, from the white 
roof of the little inn, I looked at the broad swelling 
mountain, with its snowy cap closing the upland 
view, all in the full glow of glorious sunshine, and 
pronounced Icod divine. And this was the place to 
which the old inhabitants of Taoro used to banish 
their criminals ! Here, too, in the last century, the 
Spanish Government for awhile kept the Marquis de 
la Villa de San Andres in exile, pending an inquiry 
into the guilt that was imputed to him ! 

Close to the inn, among the onions and potatoes 
of a useful patch, is a huge dragon tree, from 
which, while examining it-, under the guidance of 
its owner, I was allowed to cut off a shoot. What 
pain I caused to it I cannot of course tell. It 
did not shriek like the mandrake. But when, after- 
wards, from sheer wantonness, I plunged my knife 
into its side, there trickled forth, one, two, three 
thick drops of red blood. " Oh, yes ; it lives," re- 
marked its owner, " without doubt it lives ! " Then 
I retired, not without a fancy that there was a 
dim but horrific menace in the myriads of its spear- 
shaped leaves. 

I bore a letter of introduction to a rich citizen, 
who was also the doctor of Icod. He came to see 



THE ICOD CITIZEN. 



121 



me while I was engaged with the puchero, 
Many years ago he had lived in the American 
States, but his English had rusted from disuse ; 
and he was a man of so humble a turn that he 
chose rather to speak little than to speak ill. I 
praised the glory of the place he had fixed upon 
to cheer him in the autumn of his life. His 
humour, however, was melancholic, and he retorted 
about the trials of life, and its sufferings. He was 
a kind man, of whom others spoke well ; but also, 
I am afraid, one of those w r ho learn w r isdom and 
acquire pelf only through much travail of ex- 
perience. In the evening, lit by the moon and the 
white beacon of Teide, I visited him at his house, 
and I shall long remember him as I saw him, 
immured in his high well-filled library, reading by 
the light of a single candle. There was a skull on 
his table, and, when my friend came to meet me, 
all else was so dark that I saw nothing distinctly 
except the skull. For the moment, he affected a 
mood of levity, and talked of billiards and whist at 
the club, but nature asserted itself by and by, and 
he made many distressful remarks as we paced up 
and down the moonlit streets. 

This worthy but sorrow-stained man gave me a 
card to the Alcalde or Mayor of Garachico, whither 
I walked on the afternoon of our arrival at Icod. 

Garachico is a sad town. Three centuries ago it 
was rich in noble and conventual houses, and ships 
from many countries came to its port. The green 
cliffs of the land fell close to the sea. It was a local 
vaunt that a man might shoot and fish thereon at 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the same time. But in 1706 Teide ruined Garachico. 
A volcano suddenly appeared on the high ground 
several hundred feet above the town, but perilously 
near to it. Then came the lava. It surged over the 
cliffs, and step by step surrounded and tried to 
destroy Garachico. Monks and nuns, hidalgos and 
peasants, hastened from the doomed place to Icod. 
Nor did the lava rest when the town was burnt and 
in great part submerged. It ran on into the harbour, 
and choked the best port of Tenerife. Thus 
Garachico got its death-blow. It was despoiled of its 
commercial importance. Its cultivable land was 
buried under the lava, and the convenient cliff which 
had been its glory was scarred into ugliness by the 
congelation of the molten cascade that had streamed 
over it. Tenerife has had to lament many scourges 
since it fell to the Spanish crown : but the destruc- 
tion of Garachico most of all. 

The path from Icod led me down through a 
lovely valley beset with orange groves, nispcros, 
tall maize, sugar-cane, vines, and fig trees. Groups 
of feathery palms stood from its lower slopes, with 
the blue sea beyond them. The verdure of the pre- 
cipitous rocks that hedged the valley was astonishing. 
Vines and brambles hung in unbroken trails, scores 
of feet long ; crimson and yellow flowers bloomed in 
the crannies ; and the persevering zxrode a cir- 
cular evergreen that seems to have no stem, stuck 
like a plaster to as much of the cliff sides as was 
otherwise unappropriated. The water that causes 
this verdure was carried from side to side of the 
valley in a thin spidery aqueduct of pine trunks, 



GARACHICO'S DISASTER. 



123 



from the many leaks of which the lower lands 
enjoyed a perpetual shower-bath. 

A great rock stands by the road where Garachico's 
red roofs begin, and a crucifix surmounts the rock. 
In the contracted bay, which is now Garachico's 
apology for a harbour, there is another rock rising 
perhaps two hundred feet out of the water. On this 
also a wooden cross meets the eye. Elsewhere are 
other crosses, scratched on the lava boulders which 
have rolled from the heights, or set by the sea in the 
black volcanic sand, beyond the reach of the tide. 
Thus Garachico seems to plead with heaven that it 
may be spared future devastation like the flood of 
1645, the fire of 1697, and the eruption of 1706. 

The Alcalde told me the story of 1706 with as 
much feeling and exactitude as if he had been an 
interested witness of the wreck ; and from his roof 
we traced the current that had sped from Teide. 
Anon we visited the parochial church, the pillars of 
which show the mark, fifteen feet from the ground, 
reached by the lava. In the streets are the shells 
of many fair buildings with Corinthian portals, 
chiselled balconies, and dainty heraldic work ; but 
there is nothing behind these imposing facades. 
The remains of Garachico's casa fuerte, or guard- 
house, still stands by the sea, with two or three un- 
limbered guns by its battlements. But it is now a 
purposeless fort, since the harbour it protected is 
gone. 

The duties of the present recalled the Alcalde from 
his kindly retrospect. A sound that was half howl 
and half sob broke upon the still air when we were 



124 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



passing the Municipal Buildings. The Alcalde was 
at first puzzled to explain it. But his memory did 
not long deceive him. With a smile and a shrug of 
the shoulder, he called to a slipshod man, and sent 
him to the town clerk for a key. He then entered 
the overgrown garden of the inner courtyard of a 
deserted monastery, and, unlocking a wicket, stood 
in a little square of grassy ground with a stone seat 
in a corner, the # sky for a ceiling, and a wailing red- 
faced woman sitting on the seat. The woman 
sprang towards the Alcalde's knees with a torrent of 
words and tears, appeals to the Virgin, promises to 
amend, &c. She was the one prisoner in this the 
gaol of Garachico, and was sentenced to three days' 
incarceration, with bread and water, for being drunk 
and disorderly. This time, however, the Alcalde 
remitted her punishment ; and, having picked up a 
crust that lay among the grass, the woman shuffled 
away with many grateful adjectives upon her tongue. 

In the evening, from the azotea of the Icod inn, 
we watched the sun set. The Peak was at first 
quite free from cloud ; its black lava streaks, its 
snow, and its rosy cone, were alike bathed in the 
warm yellow light of evening. But after a while a 
burly cumulus crept round its shoulder two or three 
thousand feet from the summit, and broke into 
fragments that hung to all appearance motionless 
about its tremendous body. As the sun sank, these 
fragments were dyed a light amber colour, through 
which the purpling mountain slopes shone divinely 
where they fell to the Canarian pines, yellow as 
buttercups, at the head of the Icod valley. Later, 



ENGLISH WINE. 



127 



the clouds, and the spurs of Teide where there was 
no snow, grew abruptly black. There was an air of 
indescribable awe about the towering phantom that 
thus brooded over the town so nearly, and was yet 
so majestic that nothing could seem more remote 
from the intrusion of restless mortals. All the 
world was by this time in cool shadow of hurrying 
twilight — the mountain flanks, the pine woods at 
their base, the fields of tobacco, barley, and pota- 
toes about the town, and the reddish roofs of the 
houses, interspersed with palms and dragon trees, 
all sloping gently towards the sea — all the world 
except the Peak of Teide. As for the Peak, it 
glowed with crimson light until the very moon over 
our heads was lustrous enough to read by. 

When this scene had passed, we descended to 
dine. The company was scant but courteous ; the 
dinner Spanish yet excellent, and the wine of the 
best native growth. It fell to my lot to settle a 
dispute about the comparative worth of English and 
Spanish wines. An elderly gentleman was surprised 
to find that in defending the vintages of England, 
which he confessed he had never tasted, he had been 
whipping a dead horse, or rather a horse that had 
not yet been foaled. Probably he mistook the pale 
ale of Burton, which is in every Canarian wine- 
shop, for a strain of the British grape. 

Towards bedtime, new diversion offered. The 
hostess remarked that she had a daughter, and 
upon such a possession I congratulated her. 
" Moreover," continued the good woman, " she is 
learning the French, and speaks it a little ; not so 



128 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



well as the senor speaks Spanish, but better than 
not at all." 

"Then," said I, "the poor girl must have few 
words at command." 

" No, it is not so," rejoined the landlady, laugh- 
ing civilly. "Would the senor like me to fetch my 
daughter ? " 

She was a well-grown girl of eighteen, and she 
brought her grammar with her. There was nothing 
for it but to sit side by side, and test each other's 
acquirements. The mother meanwhile produced 
her lacework, and, with a pleased expression of face, 
composed herself on the other side of the table, now 
and then proffering a word of encouragement when 
her child's wits were wool-gathering, or centring in 
her smiles and blushes. For, though her cheeks 
were bepowdered (ay, and her very ears !) so that 
she was pale as a corpse, the blood showed 
through the powder, and her large dark eyes put 
these foolish artificial modes of adornment much to 
shame. Occasionally a citizen sidled his head into 
the room, but I fancy the student's mother told them 
with a glance that their presence was not then de- 
sired. Thus we spent an agreeable hour, and at the 
end I wished Dolores sweet dreams. 

" I did not think the English had so much 
patience ! " said the hostess, in comment upon our 
labours. But I of course had to assure her that 
patience was needed rather to help in bearing the 
cessation than the continuance of such gracious 
tasks. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



A trait of Icod character — A fair morning — Pumice plains and 
lava beds — Gomera — On the Canadas — A volcaneta— The 
Peak at its toilet— Palm Sunday service — Garachico from 
above — A valley bivouac — Santiago — A severe mountain — 
Chia — Guia — Excitement in Guia — Hospitality of Guia — 
For and against country life. 

At ten o'clock the next day, Jose and I set out for 
the Canadas, or lower and ancient crater of the 
Peak. We were to ascend whither so many griev- 
ous torrents of lava have flown over the west and 
south-west of the island. For it is on this south- 
western slope of Teide that most of the recent 
volcanetas have arisen, and the great mouth of 
Chahora, which belched fiery fluid day after day 
for several weeks in 1798, adjoins the Peak on this 
side, being only about 2,300 feet lower than it. 

Jose ingenuously confessed that he did not know 
the way to the Canadas on this side. For six pesetas 
(5s.), however, I procured a responsible youth, who 
gave me an insight into Canarian character by bar- 
gaining with another youth to relieve him of the 
work for three pesetas. To this arrangement I did 
not object, as the latter guide was a merry fellow 
with a simple and honest expression. He spoke an 

10 



i3o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



iniquitous dialect, but insisted that his bargain 
compelled him to carry the maize, bread, eggs, wine, 
&c, with which my boy had duly girt himself. 
From the time of this betrayal of his simplicity, Jose 
lorded it over him with patronizing kindliness. 

The day was perfect, and the mountain magnificent 
in the morning light. Swallows circled about us in 
the clear warm air. The blue smoke from the fires 
of the charcoal burners, two or three thousand feet 
above us, hung in straight firm columns. The very 
goats browsing amid the lower scrub and bracken 
seemed full of elation on this glad invigorating day ; 
they skipped from hillock to hillock with a lively 
ringing of bells, and laughed to scorn the superin- 
tendence of the goatherds in long white smocks, and 
the stones which the goatherds threw at them. In 
this rather populous region we met many a country- 
woman descending to the town with admirable poise 
of her shapely body, and a basket of eggs upon her 
head, muleteers clad in cool linen, with their scarlet 
vests loose upon them, and foresters laden with 
pine trunks that would have crushed you or me to 
the ground. 

Thus we passed from the infamously rough rocky 
lanes of the lowlands, which kept my mare in a 
sweat of anxiety, by woods of flowering gum cistus 
and tall heaths, into the cheerful and odorous zone 
of pines, the droppings from which lay so thick that 
our footfalls were inaudible. Our progress was 
indicated by the growing nearness of Teide on the 
left hand, and the appearance to our right, one 
after another, of sundry scarlet hillocks, which shone 



AMONG THE LA VA. 



like blood through the gold of the pines, and, one 
after another, were left behind and below us. 

At a height of about 5,000 feet, we were out of the 
pines. The extreme dryness of the air, the heat of 
the sun in a cloudless sky, and the toil, had made 
the boys almost intolerably thirsty. But neither for 
them nor the mare was a drop of water obtainable, 
for we were close to the lava-beds, which, within the 
last century, have scorched the bowels of the land, 
and whence no springs fall to the valleys. Thus we 
trod into the midst of the weird but fascinating 
evidences of volcanic work. The mountain of 
Chahora seemed very near. But we could not have 
climbed the broad slope of primrose-coloured pumice 
dust, studded with retama, which led to its summit, 
in less than two or three hours. Its rounded peak, 
seen from below, is not, however, very attractive. 
Viewed from Teide, it is vastly more interesting, for 
the great mouth of the new volcano is there seen to 
admiration. 

For many minutes we now kept to this yellow 
pumice, with a wavy bed of light-brown lava to the 
right of us. Nothing could seem more impracticable 
than this rugged iron stream, with its surface rising 
into twisted pinnacles, humps, and chilling edges, 
and sundered by crevices as deep as the fancy cared 
to make them. Here were no signs of disintegration. 
As the iron band had unrolled itself upon the country 
some score of years ago, so it lay, rigid and inflexible. 
Not even a hardy retama could find a fissure capable 
of nurturing it. The desolation was absolute. 

But by and hy the pumice sand ceased, and we 



I 3 2 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



were face to face with a wide inky current which had 
ran from the lip of Chahora down towards the brown 
lava, intersecting it at right angles. This was the 
last lava flow in the island — the outcome of 1798. It 
lay like a long coarse blot upon the land. 

At this point the delicate toil of the day began. 
For, though the stuff looked so impassable, we had 
to cross it and much more ere the Caiiadas could be 
reached. In preparation, Jose straightway put on 
his boots ; his epidermis was no doubt thick, but 
the keen points of the lava, unblunted after a century 
of life, were too much for him. 

How we laboured over this awful tract ! I left the 
mare to herself, of course. Even then the poor 
beast did not know where to put her feet. It was 
the work of an acrobat to step from point to point, 
and, withal, to avoid slipping into the painful cran- 
nies between the points. A fall from the animal 
would have brought me in peril of an impalement. 

Thus we struggled along for a couple of hours, 
rising all the time. Lava bed succeeded lava bed, 
with brief spaces of level dust cr easier rocks 
between the different beds. We were so high that 
we could see the island of Gomera lying close to 
the south-west. Its appearance was charming. We 
looked down upon its mountains in such a manner 
that they had the form of an irregular shadow cast 
upon the placid silvery sea. Gomera is little visited, 
in spite of its " Valley Beautiful " and the best 
harbour in the Canaries. It was from this harbour 
that Columbus sailed west. After Gomera, he had 
done with Europe, and the outskirts of Europe. The 



GO M ERA. 



133 



old inhabitants of this island were, among other 
derivations, thought to be allied with the Cumri of 
Cambria, and their fellow Celts : Gomera was held 
to be an expansion of Gombri, which of course had 
affinity with Cimbri. But, whatever their origin, 
these islanders, whether as aborigines or Spaniards, 
were a brave race. Drake could do nothing against 
them in 1585, when he purposed sacking the chief 
town, and carrying off a thousand skins of wine for 
the enlivenment of his voyage to Peru. Nor had 
Windon, in 1743, better luck when he threatened to 
ravage the island unconditionally if his demand for 
provisions was not acceded to. He shot five thou- 
sand balls into the town, killing two men and a 
woman, and then withdrew. 

We were 7,000 feet above the glittering sea round 
Gomera, when a sudden clap of wind buffeted us in 
the face. Immediately afterwards, a surge of mist 
swept with a roar across the great plateau of the 
Canadas. The mare was terrified, and began to 
plunge. She had got used to the stillness of these 
upper regions, which have nothing to do with life or 
death. In time, however, she got used to the mist 
also ; and it was enveloped in this dry hurtling 
vapour that, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we sat 
on the sharp edge of the Canadas crater, and ate our 
dinner with much appetite. Now and then the mist 
parted, and showed us the serrated peaks of the Cana- 
das mountains which fringe the crater. Some of them 
are 9,000 feet above the sea level, and they are boldly 
contorted. The snow still lay thick on their sides, 
in fine contrast with the brilliant reds and browns of 



134 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



their rocks, and the yellowish stretches of sand at 
their base, studded, like a great leopard's skin, with 
many light spots— the clusters of retama. There 
was snow, too, within twenty yards of our dinner- 
table ; and, in fact, neither our wine nor our noses 
lacked the property of coolness. 

On the return journey, we made a detour to 
examine a little volcano which uprose about forty 
feet from the midst of one of the brown lava streams. 
Familiarity had bred in me some disrespect for the 
dangers of the lava : as a result, I lost blood and 
skin ere we were at the base of the hillock. This 
proved to be a dainty excrescence, in shape like a 
conical lime-kiln. In its side was the rift whence the 
lava had seethed upwards to join the stream that 
was already pressing past it. I suppose the teeming 
flank of Teide, which had burst primarily higher up, 
was here glad to get another vent. This little bubble 
of stuff was extended as a tap subordinate to the 
main outflow. Within the volcaneta were traces of 
sheep and goats. They had probably rested here on 
their way to the retama of the plains. But what a 
temptation to Dame Nature to cook their mutton 
while they slumbered in trustful security within one 
of her ovens ! 

Leaving the volcaneta, we dropped gaily down the 
slopes of Teide, with the full evening light upon the 
yellow pines. The boys sang, very much in dis- 
unison, but with exceeding heartiness. For my part, 
however, I was a willing victim to the charms of 
Teide, and nothing but Teide. The mountain seemed 
to come nearer as the sun went west. Its snowy 




THE PEAK IN MARCH : FROM ABOVE ICOD. 



PALM SUNDA Y IN ICOD 137 

pyramid, and the pink cone cresting it, with soft 
inward curves, were dazzling to look at. Anon, a 
purple shadow fell upon the base of the mountain, 
and crept slowly upwards. And in this stage of the 
day, with a sky of the purest blue above, and never 
a cloud in the heavens, Teide wove gossamer 
veils one after another for the tiring of her head, 
and discarded them as fast as she put them on. 
They were the most patent of shams — absolutely 
transparent ; but how they enhanced her beauty ! 
And one by one they stole from her, and lay in glossy 
horizontal strata, until they dissipated into nothing- 
ness. To speak more exactly, the sulphureous 
vapours, which are at all times exhaling from the 
cone of the Peak, now became visible in the chilling 
air. 

The third day of our travel was Palm Sunday — a 
festival of great honour in Tenerife. While I dressed, 
I watched the populous gathering of town and 
country folk on the greensward in front of the 
church, and in the Plaza beneath my window. The 
women wore silk handkerchiefs of gay colours, bound 
round their heads, and tiny straw hats, fit for a large- 
sized doll, poised upon their crowns. Otherwise 
their attire was not singular ; clean prints being the 
common material of their gowns. There was more 
actual dandyism among the men. One young buck, 
for example, in a tight-fitting white and black cotton 
jacket, a large crimson neckcloth, and snowy pants, 
pranced superbly into the Plaza, twirling his mous- 
taches while he managed his horse. Like most of 
the others, he carried a broad palm-leaf in one hand. 



138 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



When the hour of mass was rung, I entered the 
church with the rest. Every foot of standing room 
was soon occupied. The women went to one side, 
and very lively was the effect of the hundreds of 
kerchiefed heads — purple, yellow, crimson, and blue 
— from which the small straw hats were removed. 
The men were hardly less reverent than the women 
during the function. The two or three exceptions 
were spruce adolescents who leaned against the 
columns, and chattered at their leisure, with their 
eyes upon the ladies. But even they held palm- 
leaves. The flutter of the fronds in all parts of the 
church cooled the air amazingly. Drawn from side 
to side of the choir was a thin veil of gauze, to 
symbolize the veil of the Temple. On the ensuing 
Friday this would be dramatically rent in twain, and 
afterwards the dolorous effigies of the crucified 
Christ, and the tear-stained, heart-broken Virgin, 
would proceed clown the aisle, and through the streets, 
towards the Calvary where, amid much sobbing, the 
burial scene in the cave of Arimathea would be 
enacted. But to-day the veil seemed to cool the 
heated church, like the palm-leaves. 

Jose attended mass, like the rest of Icod, and 
after the service confessed himself ready for the 
twenty miles of roadway which I proposed for the day's 
stage. Dolores came to the door to see us off. She 
had powdered her fair young face again, so that 
there was no divining whether her expression was 
one of sadness or relief. I, however, at sight of her 
made a resolution that has not been kept. I vowed 
that when next we met I would put into irreproach- 



GARACHICO FROM ABOVE. 



139 



able Castilian that "beauty unadorned is beauty at 
its best," and whisper it insidiously into her receptive 
mind. But I fear fashion is omnipotent, even in 
Tenerife. 

Bearing across the valley, we at once struck 
upwards by a path, which an hour later brought us 
to the summit of the cliff that overhangs Garachico. 
Here we halted, under a torrid sun, with nothing 
around us but the grey lava which in 1705 sped 
hence down to the town. We looked below. A few 
red specks, with a hand's breadth of green turf 
between them — this was all that Garachico appeared 
to be. The black rim framed it all too closely. At 
first it seemed odd to find, in two or three places, 
this upland lava sufficiently decomposed for the 
growth upon it of some small fig trees, a few square 
yards of potatoes and vines, and some sprigs of 
flowing gorse ; whereas elsewhere it was unyielding. 
But this material is very capricious in its surrender 
to time ; a recent outflow not seldom breaking up 
before an earlier one. 

The morning passed in uneventful labour. The 
previous day we had been where water of any kind 
is not. This day we struggled through the hottest 
hours seeking in vain for drinkable water. The soil 
was a moist vermilion sort of loam, and acres of 
potatoes stretched to the eyeline on both sides of 
us, at an altitude of about 3,000 feet above the sea. 
We were, in fact, in the midst of English greenery 
and English hedgerows; larks sung over our heads; 
and the air was damp. But we tried puddle after 
puddle in the red earth, and rejected them all 



140 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



At length a valley opened at our feet, and the thin 
glistening line that meandered through it was hailed 
as " sweet water." Thither we descended briskly, 
for it was long past the hour of lunch ; and then, by 
the side of a stream, secluded from the outer world 
by smooth, rounded hills, mottled with gorse and 
heath, we spread the contents of the saddle-bags, 
and let the mare bury her nose in a sack of barley. 
Two or three huts like pigsties held the population 
of the nook ; and ere long we had a wondering 
throng of savage little faces within hail of our meats 
and bottles. The hill scenery of this valley, and 
the large, staring eyes of these grimy children — 
fresh from play with the pigs and poultry — alike 
reminded me of Marathon. By and by a man 
appeared, leading a cow by the horn. He sat at a 
distance that he might not disturb us by his presence. 
When Jose marched up to him, with his hands full 
of food, and the conventional, " Hagdme el favor " 
(" do me the favour " — to eat something), he declined, 
but with a bow down almost to the ground. After- 
wards, however, he joined the youngsters in appro- 
priating the fragments we left. 

It was cruelly against the grain to forsake this 
grassy Eden for the hard hillsides, when our meal 
was done. Even the mare feigned to be mightily 
stiff. Maybe she had presentiment about the state 
of the road on the other side of the hill. We as- 
cended to the brow of a ridge, and looked down at 
the large village of Santiago, embosomed in a plateau 
on the other side, and with the peaks of two or three 
soaring red mountains casting shadows over its low, 



SANTIAGO. 



141 



rude houses. These conical red hills to the left 
were the same which, yesterday, on our way to the 
Canadas, we had kept to the right hand. The 
descent into Santiago was detestable. It was all 
the mare could do to keep on her feet — so slippery 
were the broad inclined planes of naked rock which 
led by degrees into the valley. 

Santiago is a poblacion of about 2,000 inhabitants, 
very rich in fruits and cereals, and picturesque 
from the irregular shape of its environing moun- 
tains ; but else uninviting. The citizens and their 
wives were so much astounded at sight of us that I 
thought the church bell would be rung in our honour. 
But the houses had a dilapidated air very dissonant 
with comfort, especially in a place nearly 3,000 feet 
above the sea, nor was I sorry when, at some cost, 
Jose had thrown off the last of his interrogators, and 
we were stumbling over gray lava pebbles towards 
another upland track. The whole of this country is 
volcanic, and the very basin in which Santiago 
stands must, in remote ages, have been repeatedly 
deluged with lava from the volcanoes around it. 

From Santiago we climbed the face of a mountain 
by a monstrously steep trail. For my life's sake, I 
would not have ridden down it. But these Tene- 
rifian horses go at the severest ascents with surpris- 
ing pluck, and I had rather to curb the good panting 
mare than to stimulate her. 

We rose until we were a thousand feet or more 
above Santiago and another like village in a green 
plateau nearer the sea. A trick of vice or terror in 
the mare would here have sent us both rolling down 



142 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the abrupt declivity. Where the ledge was nar- 
rowest, moreover, we met a muleteer with an ass 
so laden with brushwood that it took the space of 
three asses. Jose was a little anxious, but contrived 
to give the ass the outside berth, where it passed 
with two of its feet considerably lower than the 
others. 

But when we had done with the ass, we had done 
with the hard work of the day also. Thenceforward, 
until five o'clock, we gradually lowered towards the 
town of Guia, to which I was recommended for the 
night. 

Hereabouts, we said goodbye to the Peak for four 
days. Its tiny cone just looked over the hither 
thighs of the vastly-broken country which intervenes 
between it and the coast in this part of Tenerife. 
Thin woods of pine shaded the higher of these 
intermediate hills, but ere we reached Guia the 
clouds had settled upon the ridges in a long, steady, 
black bank of vapour. 

In the meantime, we passed through the village of 
Chia, where the inhabitants seemed as degraded as 
those of Santiago. Ancient crones, squatting on- the 
thresholds of ramshackle houses, thatched loosely 
with maize stalks, were taking snuff out of small 
tin boxes, or smoking cigars in social knots, their 
brown breasts exposed to the air, and chaffering 
with each other in loud, unfeminine tones. The 
men, however, were fine fellows to the eye, in their 
red waistcoats and Sunday finery. They and the 
lads of Chia greeted us with a running fire of 
questions and ejaculations, and acknowledged Jose's 



GUI A. 



143 



proud record of our feats of travel (for so they were 
regarded) with many an Ave Maria! and Caramba ! of 
stupefaction. But we hastened past them all, and 
on across the desiccated lava fields, in which the 
barley grew miserably, but the prickly pear and the 
fig-trees attained a hugh size. Jose had an uncle 
born at Guia, and he boasted the salubrity and 
scenic charms of the place with such a flourish of 
superlatives that I looked forward to our arrival. 
It promised little, however, in appearance. A coterie 
of low, flat-topped, white houses, with but scant 
greenery among the houses ; all set on a naked 
slope of mountain, surrounded by stony fields and 
unprotected from the sun — such was Guia. Fortu- 
nately, it stands about 1,800 feet above the sea, 
visible at' the base of its long slope. Otherwise, its 
heat were like to rival that of Timbuctoo. 

The excitement we provoked here was greater 
even than at Chia. The citizens, with their wives 
and daughters, flew to the roofs of their houses, and 
with telescopes, opera-glasses, and their own dark 
eyes subjected us to a very critical ordeal. There 
was no evading it, for the mare aroused loud echoes 
by her clatter over the rough stones of the streets. 
The windows were filled with faces, and at the door 
of the Casino, or club-house, a crowd of young men 
stood with billiard cues in their hands to see us go 
by. Thus we reached the house that was longer 
finis vice. Jose had of course donned his boots for 
the occasion ; but his feet had swelled, and this, 
with the tormenting cobbles, made him limp lament- 
ably. Nevertheless, he prated with glee of the 



144 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



mare's performance to any that would listen to 
him. 

Here, in Guia, as elsewhere in the Canaries, I 
learnt to love the Spanish nature. With much 
merely external courtliness, it includes an earnest 
desire to be hospitable towards a stranger that is as 
winning as it ought to be. The town lacks an inn, 
but, thanks to Dr. Montez and his family, I was 
fain to be glad of it. The ordinary English person 
would not (perhaps because he could not) "give 
himself away " to a stranger with the absolute 
abandon of kindness which makes this house memor 
able to me. At dinner, for example, with a grace 
that barred all thought save of gratitude, the ladies 
(of whom there were five or six) vied with each 
other to put tit-bits of this viand and that upon my 
plate. It was a bright meal, illumined by black 
eyes. My friend's mother sat at the head of the 
table. In the drawing-room, she also held the place 
of honour, in the middle of the sofa. So manifest 
a rule of the mother-in-law would agree well with 
but few English wives. Here it seemed to go with 
admirable smoothness. 

Late in the evening, the doctor armed me through 
the quiet, moonlit streets of the town. " There is 
nothing to seen in Guia — nothing at all," he said. 
He had migrated to Tenerife from Seville for family 
reasons, but found the contrast between Guia and 
Seville hardly supportable. Speaking professionally, 
however, he admitted that the climate of Tenerife 
was marvellously healthy : " Drier than Madiera, 
and better than Madiera." The cheapness of living 



I SOLA TION. 



145 



in Tenerife was also in its favour. Upon an income 
of 2,500 pesetas (£100), it was possible to keep an 
establishment of seven or eight human beings, 
besides horses and dogs. The common necessaries 
of life cost little. The supply of fruit is infinite. 
Partridges and rabbits represent the game of the 
neighbourhood. 

Yet, putting these positive advantages against the 
isolation of life in Guia, for a man of ardent tempera- 
ment, my friend pronounced it a terrible trial. This 
no doubt it is ; for though Tenerife is but a speck 
on the ocean, he could not make the journey to the 
capital of the island in less than two very hard days 
work. 



TI 



CHAPTER IX. 

The hot south side of Tenerife — the Euphorbia — Jose"'s brag- 
ging — Adeje — Its Casa fuerte — Its population — Ascent to 
Chasna — Chasna of the clouds — The doctor and his 
daughter — A morning outlook — Flower customs — The Eve 
of St. John — Granadilla — Its oranges — A sturdy gentleman 
— Granadilla's church, club, and tobacco factories — Rio — 
Barrancos and cave dwellings — Flies — Arico — The ex- 
dockman— Fast life in Arico. 

Led by a new guide, we left Guia at 8 a.m., and 
reached Chasna, high in the mountains, at 7 p.m. 
We were in the sun all the day, with not an inch of 
shade about us on this burning south side of Tenerife. 
The scant vegetation was largely African. Barley, 
however, stood up, yellow, thin, and stalky, among the 
grey lava stones. Cornflowers and poppies beat the 
grain on its own ground. No potatoes grew here. 
Tobacco, in patches, took its place ; and jungles of 
low fig-trees, loaded with purpling fruit. But the chief 
shrubs of all were the euphorbia, or cardon, of both 
kinds — the poisonous and the harmless. The bar- 
rancos, which here clove the land with tremendous 
energy, were thick with the olive brown-mottled 
organ-pipes of the poisonous euphorbia, eight feet 
high, and with roots extended over many square 



THE EUPHORBIA. 



149 



yards of surface. Both the good and bad cardon, 
and the prickly pear (bearing crimson and lemon- 
coloured blosoms, and myriads of ripe fruit, 1 were 
woven with webbing of the Tenerifan spider, which 
claims to be as venomous as the bad cardon itself. 
It was by no means a pleasant land. The ther- 
mometer tarried at 120 ; the barrancos held no 
sweet water; and it was necessary to dismount from 
the mare two or three times hourly for the passage 
of the ravines. 

A few words may be acceptable about this euphor- 
bia, which is so constant a scenic addition to the 
rocks of the Canaries. The good kind is said to have 
been named by King Juba after his physician 
Euphorbio, who discovered its valuable properties. 
Both kinds, when cut, exude a milky liquor : but the 
poison of the one induces a convulsive movement of 
the lips, and, in some cases, death ; whereas the 
other is even an antidote to it. Viera associates the 
fatal cardon, when read as cardon, and the " sardonic" 
laughter which it causes. Pomponius Mela, in his 
essay on the Fortunate Isles, mentions two fountains, 
the one poisonous, " making a man to die of laugh- 
ing," and the other its antidote. The expression 
" fountain " might readily be used in error by a com- 
piler who did not write of the euphorbia from actual 
knowledge. 

We halted in the heat of the day at a wretched 
little venta. The boys could not resist the muddy 
wine in its dirty bottles. Besides the wine, this 

1 Called lingua tinta, because the juice dyes the palate 
and tongue. 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



poor place offered for sale nothing except some reels 
of cotton, a button or two, and some oranges and 
lemons. The delight of the dame who sold us the 
wine was so great at seeing us that she wished to 
present us with our entertainment. " Madre de 
Dios ! " she ejaculated many times when she under- 
stood the scheme of our tour ; " to think that I 
should live to see such a caballcro ! Such courage ! " 
You see, Jose had a knack of exalting our perform- 
ances most unduly ; but his eyes sparkled with 
rapture while telling his fibs, and he so enjoyed what 
renown he got by reflection, that it was impossible 
to bid him check his ever-ready tongue. Indeed, con- 
sidering that the poor boy was afoot all the while, he 
deserved what satisfaction and praise he could get 
for his pluck in the journey. 

How heartily glad were we all when the happy 
hour of bivouac arrived ! It came late, however, for 
we had first to victual at the old town of Adeje, and 
then proceed until we found water in a barmnco fit 
for the mare to drink. Above Adeje the ravines are 
terrific, notably the one called Infernal ; and it was 
in the lower part of barranco Inferno, under a 
brooding pile of black crags and crag-riven clouds, 
that we lunched upon cheese and comfits and wine, 
while the mare paddled in the snow water, and 
munched her beans. 

Adeje is said to have been the royal abode of the 
great Tinerfe. He did not live in a palace ; nor are 
there any remains of his court and puissance. The 
Spaniards also took a fanc} r to the place, which, with 
its frame north and east of giant mountains, and its 



ADEJE. 



fertile, because well-watered, slopes towards the sea, 
no doubt appeared an ideal settlement. Here the 
best tobacco of Tenerife is grown, and acres of 
tufted sugar-cane. Indeed, the sun is concentrated 
upon this naked incline so intensely, that nothing in 
need of heat ought to fail in Adeje. 

For the protection of his estates here and in the 
adjoining island of Gomera, in 1568, the Count of 
Gomera built what he called a casa fucrte or strong- 
hold, close to the mountain wall, in a position com- 
manding the town. This castle still stands, as 
pregnable as ever it was, and a wonder in the eyes 
of the people. It has a drawbridge spanning a moat 
that one may take at a jump, and its battlements are 
guarded by a number of toy cannon. But though one 
may now laugh at this nursery fortification, probably 
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it did 
good work in frightening back to their ships many a 
piratical bluejacket or turbaned Moor, who had been 
drawn towards Adeje by the rumour of its wealth and 
accessibility. 

The modern town is one long street of red and 
white houses, with sweet water from the mountains 
running down its gutters. Its people seem rough 
and unsophisticated ; and the gathering of bronzed 
and wrinkled crones, half-naked children, and bright- 
eyed girls whom we attracted, made such a clatter 
with their tongues that they frightened the tired mare 
into a wild irresponsible canter through the borough. 

Our five hours' labour after lunch were an un- 
ceasing ascent. Adeje is only a few hundred feet 
above the sea ; Chasna is 4,270. We had panoramic 



152 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



views of the valleys towards the sea south-east of 
Adeje ; of Arona and its orange trees, girt with russet 
volcanic hills ; and of San Miguel, in a similar 
valley. The country became more and more im- 
poverished, colder, gloomier. The barley was 
miserable. The prickly pear were but just budding; 



in view, and we seemed 

A TENERIFAN IN HIS MANTA. 



over a red, stony soil. But, with a suddenness that 
had a brisk effect on our laggard energies, the mist 
fell away as we turned a hill side. Above, we 
could see the graceful shading of thick forests of 
pines, and the outline of eccentric mountains dim 
beyond ; while, below the pines, in a bower of 
greenery, red roofs and white blossoms appeared. 
We hurried on. for this was Chasna, the renowned 




the lupins only a few 
inches above the ground ; 
the fig trees hardly in leaf. 
The rare countrymen we 
met were cloaked from 
chin to knee in the heavy 
white ponchos which Wit- 
ney makes specially for the 
highlanders of Tenerife. 



By and by we got into 
the clouds, and for a 
couple of hours plodded 
cn in chill, wetting mist, 
much in contrast with the 
dry heat of Guia and 
Adeje. There was nothing 



to be ascending nowhere, 



CHASNA BY TWILIGHT. 



153 



summer watering place and hygienic resort of the 
island ; and soon we climbed its stony streets through 
orchards of pear, apple, and cherry, all in a blaze of 
flower, and sparkling in the twilight with the drops 
left on their leaves by the fleeting clouds. Groups 
of men in white cloaks stood at the doors of the 
houses ; and high, time-stained, and carved buildings 
bespoke the importance of this, the most elevated of 
the towns of Tenerife. To me it seemed that I was 
in Gloucestershire, breathing the air of a moist April 
evening. Yet I doubt if even Gloucestershire in the 
best of seasons could match Chasna, 4,270 feet above 
the sea, for the luxuriance of its grass and its 
blossoms. 

It fell dark while we were yet in the streets of this 
town, and the inhabitants withdrew to their houses, 
barring their windows with heavy wooden shutters. 
I feared we were in a quandary, for the doctor to 
whom I bore a letter had left his former house. 
But it came right in the end, though neither the 
mare nor ourselves tasted dinner before 10 p.m. 
In the meantime, I sat, unkempt and unwashed, 
vis-a-vis with my host in a large bare upper room, 
shot with draughts from all its sides. He plied me 
with questions, commented somewhat cynically on 
the answers, and took snuff. He was pleased to think 
that the English were likely to be periodical visitors 
to Tenerife, and hoped those who stayed through the 
summer would pay him a visit at Chasna. Medi- 
cally, the place suited stomach and renal affections, 
dyspepsia, &c, but it was agreeable for the sick and 
the well alike. 



154 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



Among the pretty faces of Tenerife, I shall long 
recall the doctor's little daughter. She was but 
twelve or thirteen, but quite angelic. Her features 
were regular, and not so heavy as with most Spanish 
girls. But the beauty and brilliancy of her eyes 
were incomparable. And when, with her mother's 
help, she had laid the supper table, and came and 
stood by the one candle which lit me and the room, 
her small hands folded one in the other, she was 
loveliness incarnate. Yet, though so young, she 
had the dignity and grace of a woman, and was self- 
possessed to a marvel. Her small brother, a baby of 
six or seven, brought his picture books, dolls, and 
go-carts for me to see ; and with bright eyes of 
interest she interpreted his childish lingo, adding 
explanations in a charming manner. Three years 
hence, this little one will be a Hebe worth the 
winning. " God go with you, serior," she said, in 
customary farewell, when she gave me her hand the 
next day; and the conventional rejoinder, " May He 
guard you, too, seiiorita," could not but be spoken 
with peculiar sincerity. 

This night in Chasna (or Villaflor, as it is more 
often called) was cold for Tenerife, and I used all 
the bed-covering I could get. But how delightful 
was the morning outlook when, aroused by a sunbeam 
•through a chink of the window, I opened the 
slmtters ! Such glowing verdure and scent of 
blossoms in the cool, moist, sunlit air ! The vege- 
tation so various : from cacti, aloes, lemon and 
orange trees, and budding figs, to cherry and apple 
and poplar trees ! In the Plaza below was the shell 



ABOVE THE CLOUDS. 



155 



of a decorated stone building. Grass and fig trees 
grew dense within its walls ; and by one side of it 
stood a tall cypress, healthy and strong as an Oriental 
tree. This was a ruined conventual establishment : 
the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 suspended its 
completion. Beyond were the red-roofed houses of 
the town, their white bodies looming through the 
greenery which enwrapped them, and blue smoke 
soared in spiral columns from the chimneys into the 
still, fresh air. The lowing of kine, the chirping of 
birds, and the crowing of cocks, sounded in cheerful 
tumult from all parts of the town. 

Chasna is remarkable in that its inhabitants live 
most of their time above the clouds. From my 
window, the gay pine-clad hills (being the southern 
side of the Canadas, with the conical Sombrecita as 
the dominant and most striking of the cliffs) which 
frame the town at from one to four thousand feet 
above it, were visible in detail : a charming study of 
purple and gold and crimson ; but, below the houses, 
where the land falls abruptly seawards, nothing was 
to be seen except a mass of woolly vapour, with here 
and there a dark shadow upon it. The clouds were 
about a thousand feet lower than us, while we were 
under a blue sky and a warm unmitigated sun. 

We left Chasna (which boasts of no antiquities) 
soon after 7 a.m., equipped with a gigantic bouquet 
of boughs of orange, pear, and apple blossom, and 
one little violet from the doctor's daughter. The last 
is now dry and scentless, but I keep it as an amulet 
of value. 

This giving and taking of flowers, so common in 



1 5 6 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



Tenerife, is a kindly and gracious custom. In Eng- 
land, I suppose a lady would hesitate ere she offered 
a gentleman a sprig of orange blossom. But here 
it is an every-day civility, ft is also more than this. 
Thanks to the embargo that Spanish etiquette places 
upon intercourse between unmarried girls and the 
rest of the world, the young of both sexes have estab- 
lished a very adequate code of signals expressible by 
flowers. The language of flowers is in fact a lan- 
guage very much alive, and not a mere sentimental 
fiction. The hapless lover, in the heat of his passion, 
may not be able to sit by the side of his mistress in 
her father's house or elsewhere. But it is permissi- 
ble and easy to take a loose nosegay in his hand, and, 
stationing himself in a plaintive attitude on that side 
of the street which affords him the better view of the 
girl's fair face, as she sits sighing towards him, weave 
pretty messages of admiration and love with the 
roses and jasmine and heliotrope. 

The maiden, too, depends on flowers as a means of 
divination. When she yearns to know who shall 
marry her, she throws a bouquet into the street. He 
who picks it up has the claim upon her. But no 
doubt she will not resort to this hazardous method of 
inquiry, unless she believes her heart's lover to be near 
at hand. If a pig touch the flowers with his snout, 
it is a sign that the lady is doomed to a Portuguese, 
and not a Spaniard. 

The great season for these experiments is the 22nd 
of June, the eve of St. John. It is the custom then to 
light bonfires at the doors of those w r ho bear the 
saint's name — Juan or Juana. A maiden listening 



SUPERSTITIONS. 



157 



at her window to the chatter in the street is wont to 
give credence to the fancy that the first male Christian 
name which she hears spoken after the lighting of 
the fires is the name of her future husband. Another 
plan is to break a new-laid egg into a glass of water, 
and let it stand through the night. By rising at 
dawn the next day, the votary may distinguish marks 
in the commixture of egg and water, indicative of the 
trade or profession of her beloved. Another less 
cheerful superstition belongs to this St. John's Eve. 
A dish of water being set out on the eve, may be 
looked into at daybreak. If the reflection be clear, 
the augury is good ; otherwise, the dimness forebodes 
death to the experimentalist within the year. 

From Villaflor we rapidly descended in the bracing 
atmosphere, to the town of Granadilla, some two 
thousand feet lower down. The tract was broken 
but distinct, bordered by asphodels, and red and 
yellow poppies ; now leading us into a steep gulley 
coated with scrub, and now by rough barley fields 
and down broad steps of slippery white rock. As 
we proceeded, the sun melted the clouds at our feet. 
Thus the lowlands were gradually uncovered, and 
rounded hills, green basins, and inclined reaches of 
uncultivable lava came into view, to the water's 
edge. Ere we neared the orange groves of Grana- 
dilla, the atmosphere had cleared so that the moun- 
tains of Grand Canary, fifty miles away, stood forth 
boldly. 

The entrance to this balmy town was by a series 
of awkward rock slabs, which brought the mare upon 
her haunches twice or thrice. At its outskirts we 



i 5 8 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



came to a lava monument, surmounted by a monk in 
the attitude of preaching. Then a bountiful fountain 
testified to the supply of- that best commodity of 
a Tenerifan town. But Granadilla is more famous 
for its oranges. Not Florida has its trees weighted 
more profusely. The perfume of the blossom was too 
sweet. Oranges lay in piles in the gutters. A beggar 
woman, sitting by the roadside, was making her 
breakfast from them. She did but squeeze out their 
juice, and the heap of indented carcasses by her toe- 
less shoe marked the measure of her indulgence. 

At Granadilla, I made the acquaintance of a type 
of Spaniard new to me. The Guia guide carried my 
introduction to him, while I waited in the large inner 
quadrangle of his house, watching the brisk move- 
ments of the milkmaids and ostlers, all by their 
activity betokening a master of no common kind. 
Such, in fact, Don Ramon Garcia proved to be. 

He was a little man, preternaturally broad, with a 
full round red face, and a minute moustache neatly 
waxed and turned at the ends. Jose winced at the 
sight of him ; and the thunderous bidding of Don 
Ramon to take the mare to a stable and do all that 
was necessary, seemed to be no more than his intui- 
tion made him expect. 

With me, of course, Don Ramon was less authori- 
tative, until breakfast was served. We sat in his 
drawing-room at the window, and he talked loud, 
so that the people in the street gathered at the 
corner to see what was happening. He offered 
me Madrid journals six weeks old, discussed the 
telegrams about Castillo, and bade some one fetch 



A MASTERFUL MASTER. 



159 



the cur a of the parish church. His reverence 
duly appeared — a sheepish, dirty, blushing young 
priest, who, it was clear from his obsequious 
demeanour, was in most things my friend's very 
obedient servant. In two words, Don Ramon told 
his business. He was to have the church unlocked 
and everything on view for us in an hour's time. 
" Yes, sir," said the cura, who with a bow and a new 
blush, withdrew like a domestic. 

Breakfast was soon ready ; and then Don Ramon, 
with generous hospitality, enrolled me among his 
slaves. He plyed me with his best wines till my 
head thickened, and made a feint of emptying his 
glass at every toast, so that he might have 
excuse for refilling mine. While we ate, a maid 
whisked the flies from our head with a peacock's 
feather. She was alert enough, but not to Don 
Ramon's satisfaction. " The senor's head ! Car- 
amba ! Do you not see there is a fly upon him ? 
Dios mio ! what a simpleton ! " Thus he bullied the 
girl, while he feted me. Once he caught her smiling, 
and abused her so that she replied, and then he 
stormed her out of the room. Jose, the Guia guide, 
and two or three others, stood in the quadrangle, on 
the other side, smiling and shrugging their shoulders ; 
but whenever Don Ramon turned his head that way 
all such levity ended. I never saw such a domestic 
tyrant. He was a bachelor to tame a Xantippe. 

After a cup of chocolate of unrivalled excellence 
(" you would not get such chocolate in the house of a 
married man," said my friend, with elation), we went 
out to view the town. The church came first ; a 



i6o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



building newly restored, with white walls, and 
green railings in its white bell-tower. Don Ramon 
would not enter the church. He committed me to 
the cura] and himself stood outside with his back 
to the porch, his short legs wide apart, smoking a 
stout cigar from his own factory. As for the priest, 
he was a very ignorant person. He guessed at the 
meaning of the daubs on the walls, and guessed 
wrongly. To show the date of the ancient missals 
still in use, he put his unclean thumb on the epoch of 
the enunciation of a certain canon. The silver can- 
dlesticks, monstrances, figures of the crucified Christ 
and the Virgin being decked for the festival of the 
week, the bier for the dead, draped with festoons of 
dusty paper flowers — these things, however, he took 
pride in showing me ; and in dilating upon their 
intrinsic worth and magnificence. 

Don Ramon was more anxious to show a stranger 
the town club than the town church. In its estab- 
lishment he had been prime mover ; and the billiard 
room, library replete with old periodicals, and theatre, 
were all deducible from him. The drop scene of the 
stage of the theatre was a particular wonder. The 
blinds of the room had to be drawn, the lamps lit, 
and the day turned into night that I might admire 
the artist's ingenuity, and guessthe subject his genius 
had evoked for the joy of Granadilla. The perspec- 
tive was shocking, and it was not without an effort 
that I recognised the church just visited, and the 
orange trees which proclaimed Granadilla itself. 

After the club, we visited a tobacco factory, one of 
Don Ramon's own. The fields were within hail of the 



ON TO ARICO. 



161 



town, and here, in the different rooms of two small 
houses, their produce was dried, sorted, rolled by the 
deft fingers of three men, and finally packed and 
labelled by sundry girls. At Don Ramon's kind 
command, an embarrassing cigar, a foot long, was 
made and presented to me, and others of various 
brands — the most costly selling in Madrid for 40s. 
the hundred. 

By this, it was time to say good-bye to my odd 
good friend. At parting I was rude enough to ex- 
press the wish that he might soon change his state 
of single blessedness. But he received the wish with 
a hard smile that told how ill it fitted with his as- 
pirations. " No, no, senor, soltero sicmpre " (always 
a bachelor ! ) he said, with decision — " a Dios ! " 

The Guia guide was eager to gossip about Don 
Ramon as soon as we were out of the town. "Rich ! 
I believe it, senor," said he, "Why, Don Ramon owns 
houses and lands, and mills for tobacco, sugar, and 
gofio ; and only one mouth to feed with it all ! 
Ave Maria! that is a rich man, without doubt ! " 

In the nine miles of track from Granadilla to Arico 
we passed over much hot stony land, divested of 
trees. The red and white rocks were in some places 
picturesque, and the clouded mountains to the left 
were so throughout. At the entrance to the village 
of Rio, six miles on our way, we had to cross a 
yawning bavranco of the most tiresome kind. A 
man might throw a stone over it, and yet we spent 
nearly an hour in descending its precipitous walls 
to the stagnant yellow puddles in its bed, and then 
toiling up the light-brown rock on the other side. 

12 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



In the neighbourhood of Rio, where the surface is 
formed of singularly even strata of hard grayish 
tufa, are several hundred troglodytes. They may 
be regarded as direct descendants of the Guanches, 
who, five hundred years ago, also lived in caves on 
this side of the island, and may be, in the same caves. 
The holes run in regular streets, and vents cut in the 
upper layer of rock serve as chimneys. At the in- 
vitation of a proprietor, I entered his house. It was 
in two parts, the sleeping-room divided by a natural 
wall from the stable and kitchen, where an ass lay 
among the pots and pans. The ceiling was certainly 
low, but had been chiselled smoothly. But the 
chief charm of these dwellings is their coolness. 
The Governor- General at Santa Cruz, with a bower 
of orange trees and tropical shrubs enclosing his 
palace, cannot enjoy so exhilarating a temperature 
as these poor troglodytes, who depend for their 
livelihood upon the one little ass they let for hire 
when an occasion offers, upon the roots of this hard 
ungenerous soil, and the rare opportunities of manual 
labour. This particular cave also held a weaving 
frame of a rude kind, and the swarthy housewife 
controled it while watching her various children, 
and calming the squeals of her baby. The gofio 
mill, besides, is an essential in every household. 

It is difficult to say whether travel has an 
enlarging or a repressive effect upon the human 
sympathies as a whole. But, in some respects, I am 
afraid it tends inevitably to harden the heart. In 
this cave the flies were upon the walls in clots. 
Outside it was worse. Mv mare was in an agony. 



FLIES. 



163 



They stung her where she could not protect herself. 
The consequence was that she kicked methodically 
as some relief for her pain. How many of the flies 
I killed with the handle of my fly-whip, prone upon 
the neck of the mare, I should shudder to conjecture 
did I think that retribution awaited whomsoever 
deprived a living being of its life. In fact, I learnt 
to pity Nero that, by the ignorance of those who live 
in temperate regions, and know little of the pests 
that appertain to heat, he should have been gibbeted 
in the minds of so many well-princrpled boys and 
girls as the very king of cowardly tyrants, because 
he found pastime in the massacre of flies. How 
should you like to be eaten alive by these industrious 
little creatures ? Yet this is the fate of numerous 
asses and horses that are prevented from using the 
means of protection supplied to them by nature. 
The animal does not disappear in infinitesimal 
morsels, all at once, in the midst of a swarm of 
countless house-flies. Hardly. But this is true, 
that many a one begins the summer with a stout, 
unfractured hide, and ends it covered with red 
wounds and holes, due more or less to the flies. 
A weak animal may readily succumb to this inces- 
sant torture, and thus be the victim, absolutely, of 
these same flies. 

Having drunk a little of the yellow water which 
was the best these poor cave-dwellers could offer us, 
we went on to Arico. We were in the aridest part 
of Tenerife — a land scorched by the sun throughout 
the year, and with little or no soil over its rocks. 
The outer fringe of the Cariadas falls steeply here, 



1 64 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



intersected by vast ravines. The entire slope is 
veined with lava deposits ; and the blue sea that 
washes its shores breaks into foam upon the sharp 
edges of caves which at one time were undisturbed 
cells (gaseous bubbles) in the stream of scoriae from 
the Canadas. On this torrid incline, among some 
patches of languishing barley and beans, are a few 
white houses — the majority dilapidated, not one im- 
posing. This is the village of Arico, a forlorn place ; 
and thither we went, with but dim assurance of a 
reception, still, less a welcome, from any one. 

But here again the Guia guide proved his discre- 
tion and thoughtfulness. He went straight to the 
house that seemed in best repair, and stated our case 
with homely eloquence. And, after a brief confabu- 
lation between two or three burgesses and their 
wives, I was installed in the upper room of a house, 
approached by an outside wooden ladder. The 
master of the house, a stout, sly, sleek man, was 
effusive in his welcome, and unduly apologetic. 

" Casa dc campo only, senor,'' he said. " But the 
heart is as warm in a poor cottage as in a king's 
palace." He had migrated years ago to Havana, and 
there been so uncivilly used by fortune that he had 
served as a dock porter. "And my health suffered. I 
was glad, therefore, to come home again. And now 
here I am with a wife, several little children, and an 
old mother, all upon my hands. I do my best, but 
it is hard, senor, and me not much money." 

These last words were in English, he having 
picked up shreds of the language by intercourse with 
English dockmen and others. Out of compliment, 



EXCITEMENT IN ARICO. 



165 



I suppose, he continued to afflict me by remember- 
ing other unpleasant phrases and adjectives, and 
proferring them with a whine. I am afraid it is fair 
to assume that the man who harps on his own mis- 
fortunes is either soft of wit, or devoid of principle. 

In Arico I met a brother of Don Ramon of 
Granadilla, a gentleman with fewer prejudices than 
the Spanish grandee commonly possesses. He was 
stupefied at the idea of English ladies ascending the 
Peak ; but, on the other hand, he admitted that if the 
Canarian girls were allowed to run about and play 
like their English sisters, unrestrained by rules of 
etiquette, it would be better for them than their 
present confined life. Serior Garcia, unlike his 
brother, was married, and he too was very rich. 
Later in the evening, I found him in an outhouse 
tossing dice with half a dozen ill-looking men. 
Such condescension costs a Spaniard but little. 
He avers that gentility is of blood, not money ; and 
where is the Spaniard whose blood is not as blue as 
he would have it to be ? 

After dinner my landlord thought to amuse me 
with a little of life behind the scenes in a country 
village of Tenerife. He summoned two or three of 
the gilded youth of Arico, and we all walked to the 
outskirts of the place, to a little cavern cut in the 
rock. It was a comfortless hole, with the rain that 
chanced to be falling filtering through the tufa of 
the ceiling in our midst ; but I sat on a stool, willing 
to be entertained. An ancient hag kept this den, 
and, being bidden, put before us a dish of salted 
water, raw beans, and a bottle of wine. The 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



young men fillipped the beans at the nose of the old 
lad} 7 , and as her nose was large and red, it was a 
mark easy to hit. But this was not proper usage 
for the beans. They were to be eaten from the 
salted water with the wine. Later, in came three 
girls. They were very alluring by the faint light of 
our one tallow candle. But they were not modest 
girls, and when the bean fillipping was extended to 
them they accepted the challenge with such vigour 
that in a few moments the place was like a battle- 
field. The worst of it was that the boldest (indeed 
she was also the prettiest) of the girls asked me 
point blank if I was not in love with her black 
eyes. Having given her the admiration she wanted, 
I found myself yawning with such determination that 
there was nothing for it but to wish the merrymakers 
"good-night" and go off to bed, leaving behind, 
no doubt, a desperately low opinion of English 
gallantry. 



CHAPTER X. 



A dilemma — Spanish generosity — The Barranco de Herque — 
Fasnea — The genial householder — A downpour — Escobonal 
and the carretara — View of Guimar— The procession of 
Holy Thursday — Fanaticism — Candelaria — Rude burial — 
The camel — Santa Cruz — Strategy — Laguha — Orotava. 

Much rain fell during this night at Arico, and the 
country looked very lowering early the next day. 
The clouds hung in slow-moving masses over the 
mountain sides, and their big shadows embraced us 
and the town, and reached even to the shore. Here, 
however, the sparkling blue of the sea, lit by the 
sun, was in brilliant contrast to our gloom. The 
rain had had a wonderfully freshening effect upon 
our surroundings. The close atmosphere reeked 
with the perfume of wild mint and thyme, and the 
lean yellow barley, and the poppies thick among it, 
were strung with water-drops. This rain was also 
the talk of the town. Everyone out of doors was 
wrapped to the mouth in his white mauta, and, while 
speaking, held his hand before his lips for fear of the 
damp. " Of course you will not go on to-day!" 
they said to me. And then they told dubious tales 
about the perils of the barrancos, and the roaring 
torrents that the mountain downpour would cast 



i68 



THE CANARY ISLANDS, 



into them. Jose, too, sidled up, with a straw in his 
mouth, and said the mare could not do more than 
she could. 

Little as I cared to stay in Arico, a deterrent 
worse than the weather was like to have kept me 
there for a time. The worthy ex-Havana dockman 
presented me with a bill out of all proportion to 
reason ; and as I had no inordinate supply of money 
with me, the payment of it would have left me 
penniless for the two days hence to Santa Cruz. 
Expostulation did but make the man whine about 
his duty to his family, and the few travellers who 
came that way (" it is therefore necessary to make 
the most of one when he does come," said he) : he 
could neither abate nor trust me. But in the midst 
of the turmoil appeared Senor Garcia, the brother of 
Don Ramon. He was no sooner enlightened about 
the matter than he sent a servant for a roll of 
dollars, and put them into my hands. " Take what 
you want," he said, and turned his back. I was 
rejoiced, of course. But the good Spaniard, on his 
part, would not even receive an acknowledgment of 
the loan. Nor was this the limit of his benefaction. 
He summoned a weatherwise man, and by the side 
of a well held solemn debate about the clouds and 
the barrancos, until the danger of our way grew 
tenuous and even visionary. Then he procured a 
guide towards the next village, and, everything being 
in order, I mounted the mare and left Arico. I have 
been thus prolix in the narrative of our trouble in 
this place that I might the better portray the kind- 
ness and courtesy of this typical Spanish gentleman. 



THE BARRANCO DE HER QUE. 



169 



To know such a man is more educative than an 
octavo volume of solid moral maxims. 

The new guide did not stay with us long. He 
went off to his goats, bequeathing to Jose so verbose 
a description of his duties and the country that the 
boy wrinkled his forehead with anxiety. It was in 
truth a frightful tract of land. But for occasional 
puny little parallelograms of barley, growing miser- 
ably in the red, stony soil, I should have said it was 
absolutely sterile. The heat, too, got suffocating. 
Both of us, and the mare, panted for breath as we 
climbed wearily over the whitened rocks towards the 
town, high up in the hills, which was to be our first 
stage that day. The flies were insufferable. But 
towards noon even they seemed overmastered by the 
close atmosphere, and we three creatures struggling 
upwards were the only movables in sight. In spite 
of the prognostications of Arico, we found no water 
in the ravines until we reached the clouds, about 
2,000 feet above the sea. 

On our way we were confronted with the barranco 
de Herque, celebrated as the site of the catacomb or 
Pantheon wherein Viera saw a thousand Guanche 
mummies. It is a gigantic rift, with sides so nearly 
perpendicular that we had to proceed to its very 
mouth, where it debouches upon the sea in a cove of 
fine smooth sand, before we could cross it ; and then 
follow its hot stony bed inland until a feasible incline 
of its brown walls, clumped with euphorbia, is per- 
ceptible. This inviting little cove has doubtless been 
often visited by English and other sailors in search 
of Guanche mummy medicaments. But it would try 



i7o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the nerve of the most skilful mastheadman to climb 
to the caves of this barranco, which, from their posi- 
tion and aspect, were most likely to reward the 
explorer for his pains. 

We reached the village of Fasnea and the skirt of 
the clouds at about 2 p.m. Fasnea is only a league 
from Arico, yet it had cost us four hours of our time ! 
We were glad to have done with the repellent 
vicinity of Arico. The sun had scorched and 
blistered us like the near flames of a furnace. If 
such were the case early in April, one might well 
perspire at the mere thought of the same country in 
July or August, with the added charm of a south 
wind blowing hot from the Sahara upon the shore. 
Below Fasnea we stepped into a water flood that soon 
soaked us to the skin. Jose wore nothing over his 
brown body but a thin cotton jacket, and this now 
adhered to him like a new skin. For an hour we 
fought against the downpour ; then the apparition of 
a pleasant house, with blue and green paint upon it, 
drew us to a pause. It was lunch time, moreover. 
But what was the housewife likely to say to such 
sopped rats as us ? Jose, however, did not give her 
much chance of objecting. He even treated the 
matter so cavalierly as to offsaddle the mare, carry 
her gear into the reception room, and set it down, all 
slobbering with rain, under an engraving of the 
patron saint of gardeners (St. Fiacre). "It is 
nothing, caballcro — nothing at all ! " exclaimed the 
housewife. She was a stout, hearty young matron, 
with a dark moustache ; and she laughed at our 
proceedings. She did more : she gave us dried figs 



A LITTLE DAMP. 



171 



from her own garden, wine of her own pressing, and 
hunches of barley bread, the material for a sound 
meal ; and she uttered monosyllables of satisfaction 
in a deep bass voice while she stood with her arms 
in her fat sides, watching us eat. During the feast 
the mare, with all her grace of deportment drowned 
out of her, put her head into the room through the 
window. It was a pretty scene, this cheerful apart- 
ment, with its mirrors and pictures of uncommon 
saints, adorned with tinsel paper ; the portly, dark- 
skinned lady filling the foreground ;. the tender face 
of the good mare bending over the senora's shoulder 
to get the bread with which she tempted it ; Jose, 
showing his teeth with spasmodic grins ; and the 
dripping foliage of the fir trees and shrubs in the 
garden behind the mare ! But the lady marred the 
romance of the situation by accepting, in conclusion, 
about four times as much money as the worth of 
what we, including the mare, had consumed. 
Probably, after all, the wetted boards went to her 
stout heart. 

The rain continued to swill from the clouds in 
spite of our tarrying. Once again we went into 
brief shelter. This time we were on the edge of a 
barranco, but, at the invitation of a countrywoman, 
with a cock in a basket on her head, we joined her 
under a slab of rock. Here we saw the rapid growth 
of a torrent in the ravine. At first the barranco was 
hardly' more than moist. But while we crouched, 
numberless brown frothing streamlets drained down 
from its sides into its bed. We did not delay long ; 
for an hour later it promised to hurl about the 



172 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



immense bluish boulders, which are ordinarily the 
only litter of these dry, hot crevices. 

From Fasnea to Escobonal, still in the mountains, 
is only about half an hour ; and here, with mixed 
feelings, we clambered up from the old track we had 
followed for the last four days, and attained the 
carrctara, or coach road, which is completed from 
Santa Cruz thus far in this direction. Jose sighed 
with contentment. Thenceforward, he would have 
much less care for the mare's shoes, and it would be 
impossible to lose the way. But to me it was not so 
pleasant thus to come plump upon the methods of 
civilization after our rough but happy shifts for 
nearly a week. However, it is one thing for a 
National Board of Works to make admirable roads, 
and another for the people to use them. Between 
Escobonal and Guimar (about five miles) we met 
not one vehicle of any kind. But now and again we 
saw an agile man or woman, who, in following the 
old, more direct, though steeper, path, had to climb 
over the walls of the new road. This and the grass 
on the excellent highway were somewhat insulting 
to the authorities ; but what could be done in 
remedy ? An innovation so serious probably affected 
the country folk here much as the railway affected 
our own peasantry fifty years ago. As a spectacle it 
was superb, but rather demoniacal. 

A sudden turn round a cape of rock in the vicinity 
of Escobonal gave us an impressive view of Santa 
Cruz, about twenty-eight miles away. The capital 
was in sunlight, while we were in black shadow. It 
stretched from the mainland as a dazzling white 



THE VALE OF GUIMAR. 



173 



line, with the Anaga peaks behind it. Hence, also, 
the island of Grand Canary — about thirty-five miles 
distant — was very clear. 

We now crossed the grandiose barranco Badajos, 
and mounted gradually, to descend into the Vale of 
Guimar. The barrancos were no longer a trial, for 
they were all spanned by the blue and white lava- 
stone bridges, which are so creditable a feature of 
the carretara of Tenerife. But Jose, like the natives, 
shunned the carretara. I constantly thought he 
was lost, and was only reassured by seeing him 
appear in front, dropping down the sides of a 
red or purple bluff of rock, heedless of the nopals 
and euphorbia which threatened him on all 
quarters. Thus it happened that the Vale of 
Guimar burst upon me, all unprepared, with another 
abrupt turning round the edge of an immense moun- 
tain wall. It was a satisfying sight. Humboldt 
affirmed that the Vale of Orotava is the most beauti- 
ful in the world. To my mind, Guimar is more 
beautiful than Orotava, although it lacks the Peak 
itself as an element in its picture. But Humboldt 
did not see Guimar. 

I was about a thousand feet above the valley or 
amphitheatre when it was unfolded to me, the road 
being cut in the side of a precipitous mountain. The 
town lay below, a brilliant congeries of white houses, 
dotted with palm trees, and set on a slope of the Cor- 
dillera running from the Cailadas towards Laguna. 
The mountains of this cordillera are 6,000 to 7,000 
feet high, and so steep from Guimar that the sharp 
vermillion and olive summits are little more than a 



174 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



league from the houses of the town. Angular 
shoulders fall from the range into the valley, shaded 
with pines on their crests, and with thickets of wild 
fig, quince, and other fruit trees, and myriads of 
prickly pear lower down. The background to Guimar 
is therefore much bolder than that of Orotava, from 
which its amphitheatre of mountains is several miles 
distant. At Guimar, as at Orotava, the country 
between the town and the sea in the foreground is 
diversified by volcanic ash humps, monstrous me- 
mentoes of the troubled past that may at any time be 
repeated in fresh trouble. 

But it is the singular broad scene of devastation 
that makes the valley so much more impressive than 
Orotava. Viewed from above, the area of decom- 
posing lava south of the town seems prodigious. It 
is mapped out into hundreds of little paddocks, 
where vines and fig trees are gradually thrusting 
their roots into the soil underneath the crust of ruin 
which has covered it for scores of years. Yet, in 
stern and most emphatic proof that all this labour 
may at any time become labour lost, are two wide 
lines, intensely black, permeating the valley, and 
running seawards. They proceed from one of the 
hinder peaks, and are the lava streams of 1704 and 
1705, when the hapless residents of Guimar experi- 
enced ten or twelve earthquake shocks every day for 
three continuous months. These inky scores give 
grand colouring to this extraordinary landscape. The 
glory of the crimson mountain tops, the vivid greenery 
of many tints where tobacco, sugar-cane, maize, 
and every vegetable of common use, dye the fields 



THE INN OF GUIMAR. 



175 



recovered from the old lava, the white houses, the 
wisps of cloud floating about the hill slopes, and the 
red-brown walls of rock, west of the valley, studded 
with a various garb of shrubs, cannot reconcile one 
to the fatal significance of these two dark still rivers 
of destruction. Nature is here distinctly " a fearful 
monster, for ever devouring her own offspring." 

With such thoughts in my head, and listening to 
the sweet tones of the Guimar bells, the mare and I 
slowly descended into the valley. It was the eve of 
Holy Thursday. We were just in time for the cere- 
monies of Holy Week. 

Guimar is a town of some importance, with about 
5000 inhabitants, and daily coach service connection 
with Santa Cruz. It has, therefore, an inn — an inn 
Spanish to the backbone. At the outset, Jose had 
to stand for a few minutes, cap in hand, pleading 
earnestly with the innkeeper to give us a lodging. 
The man was of great size, and eyed me and the 
mare for some time, questioning Jose about both of 
us, ere he preferred any sort of an invitation to enter 
his house. Moreover, as he kept a shop as well as an 
inn, and customers were numerous, during this period 
of uncertainty he vanished now and again to attend 
to his clients. This apparent neglect seemed to send 
the mare to sleep, and whilst she slept I smoked 
cigarettes upon her stalwart back. Perhaps, in the 
end, it was our common affectation of indifference 
to the shocks and slights of fortune, that made the 
man at last order the boy to lead the mare to the 
stable, and bring out a three-legged stool for my use. 

" A bed, seflor ? " said he, like one solving a pro- 



176 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



blem ; " why, without doubt ! But it is my wife's 
affair: she will arrange it. What I want to know is 
what your worship (su merced) would like for dinner. 
Afterwards, tell me what you think of the country." 

It was a comfort to know the matter was settled. 
I had heard hard tales about this Guimar inn. But 
the truth is that its master and mistress were people 
to be approached with tact, and rather flattered into 
complaisance than forced into anything. It was only 
after delicate manoeuvring that I contrived to make 
the lady of the house understand how grateful I 
should feel if she gave me clean sheets to my bed. 
But when I put the request before her so as to cast 
no slur upon her establishment, she humoured my 
eccentric tastes in this and other particulars. Later, 
she served the dinner with her own hands, in a mas- 
terful but kindly way. It was an excellent meal, with 
fair wine. Her face shone with pleasure when I 
praised it, and I believe I made her completely happy 
for an hour when, over the bananas and oranges, I 
questioned her little boy about his studies, and com- 
plimented him upon his erudition. The youngster 
could not, I am glad to say, devote much time to 
this sort of cross-examination. The tolling of the 
bells made him run away to church, where he was to 
join the procession as a scarlet acolyte. 

"He has a sweet voice," remarked his mother, 
"and the cum thinks much of his singing. But for my 
part" — she added, with a sigh — "I wish the poor boy 
did not squint in his left eye. He might have a 
voice Hke a crow, but I would be happy, Ave Maria ! 
if he could only see straight also." It was true that 



THE PROCESSION OF HOLY THURSDA Y. 177 



the lad squinted, but he was so intelligent that the 
misfortune seemed lost upon him. 

From my bedroom, with a saint on each of the 
walls, I soon followed the boy towards the church of 
Guimar. The people of the town are reputed to be 
the most fanatical in the island in religious matters. 
Their priests are omnipotent. A word from them 
would almost suffice for an auto da fe ; and he were 
a bold person who dared to air an heretical or 
liberal notion within their jurisdiction. 

Unluckily, I did not learn that Guimar bore this 
character until I had left it. I thought it no wrong 
to go into the town in riding attire and a white hat. 
To be sure, it was soon evident that the citizens and 
their families at the windows of the houses and on 
the roofs, were all in black and bareheaded. But, as 
a stranger, methought I might be excused for only 
partial conformity to their customs. It was not so, 
however. For a time, all went well. I joined the 
throng who followed the statues of Christ bearing 
the cross, and the Mater Dolorosa in purple velvet, 
as they were carried through the street by a file of 
crimson-robed ecclesiastics, boys with lamps and can- 
dles, and a band of musicians who marched with 
inverted muskets, and played sad, moving melodies. 
But the scene and its surroundings, with the dull, 
unintelligent faces of the men and boys of the crowd, 
soon depressed me to such a degree that I left the 
procession and went to the side path of the Plaza, 
through which the images were being borne to the 
church at its extremity. Here I caused displeasure 
by putting on my hat. I did wrong, no doubt, in 

13 



178 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



forgetting where I was ; but I am sorry to say that 
the harsh, insolent, and even savage cries of the by- 
standers acted upon me like an irritant. The con- 
sequence was that for the length of the Plaza (about 
a hundred and fifty yards), I ran the gauntlet of gibes, 
sneers, and even menaces, to the very door of the 
church. One youth approached to unbonnet me, 
but he forbore to do so. It was a wholly discomfort- 
ing and merited humiliation, and I wished myself 
far from this parish church of Guimar. The very 
priests, who ought to have poured oil on this public 
exhibition of ill-feeling, did but scowl on me where I 
stood within the porch, while they all passed by to- 
wards the sanctuary ; and men, women, and children 
were not slow to follow the example of their spiritual 
rulers. The little acolyte of the inn, with a gilded 
lamp in his hand, seemed no better than the rest. 
He stared with horror, as if I had nothing in com- 
mon with the person to whom he had so recently 
discoursed, in calm mental unrestraint, about the 
countries of Europe and their respective capitals. 
But perhaps the poor lad's affection of the eye made 
his looks discordant with his feelings. 

However, as I had no mind to humble myself in 
public after these various slights and insults, I stayed 
in the church as long as I pleased, and then retraced 
my steps through the Plaza, to all appearance, I hope, 
oblivious of the existence of the hundreds of Guimar 
citizens and youths who still kept at their doors. 
They, on their part, did not hesitate to continue their 
coarse and derisive remarks, which I allowed to enter 
at one ear and go out into the air by the other. But 



BROUGHT UP ON GOFIO. 



179 



when I reached the inn, and had well considered the 
matter with a cigar, upon the roof of the building, 
aided by a mild, bright moon, and a sweet aroma of 
cut sugar canes, I passed judgment upon myself. It 
was certain that I had met with my deserts. In 
Guimar, as in Rome, one ought to follow the fashion. 

Early on Holy Thursday, we left Guimar for our 
last stage but one. The day was warm, and the 
scenery, for Tenerife, tame. For the whole twenty 
miles we followed the carretara, now almost touching 
the sea, and again bending inland, until the coast was 
screened by intervening hills. 

We halted but once during this brisk journey. It 
was at a lowly wayside wine shop, nearly as full of 
children as flies — " and all mine," said the country- 
woman who kept the shop, referring to the children. 
I counted nine, and others were with their father, 
pelting stones at the goats on the hill sides. In 
Tenerife it costs little to rear a large family. 
Gofio is the common food, as in the days of the 
Guanches. It is taken dry, by mouthfuls, with 
glasses of wine or water to wash it down ; or it is 
made into dough, and so eaten ; or, if the peasant 
can afford to be luxurious, it is mixed with honey, 
milk, or coffee. For the man unused to gofio, no- 
thing is more apt to induce death by choking. But 
it is a nutriment well suited to the Canarians. They 
will walk all day upon the strength of a couple of 
handfuls of it. 

A few miles from Guimar, nestling by the coast, is 
the ancient port and shrine of Candelaria. This little 
village used to be the holiest place of pilgrimage in 



i8o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the islands. Here, in the time of the Guanches, the 
Virgin appeared and consented to dwell in a lowly 
cave which the troubled natives prepared for her. Of 
course the Guanches did not identify her as Maria 
Santissima; but the legend says that they so revered 
her (although she severely punished the ignorant goat- 
herds who on first seeing her threw stones to frighten 
her away from their flocks) as to regret nothing so 
much as her removal by the early Spaniards, who 
were astounded to discover the image in a land they 
thought absolutely heathen. Afterwards, the Virgin 
was restored to her original cave, which grew into a 
grotto, surrounded by monastic and other buildings 
for those who came to do her honour. When the 
island was disturbed by war, pestilence, locusts, 
floods, or volcanoes, it was to the Virgin of Cande- 
laria that the people ran as a supreme resource. 
The statue was then ceremoniously paraded through 
the stricken district, and the wonder was worked. 
But, in 1705, when the locality was shaken by 
numerous earthquakes, the image itself was trans- 
ported, for safety, to Laguna. This Virgin of 
Candelaria, the main theme of Viana's epic, 
was in 1826 washed out to sea by a flood in the 
barranco which held the grotto. The present glory 
of Candelaria is therefore posthumous glory. But 
if, as certain irreverent writers aver, the original 
image was only the figure-head of a ship, driven 
ashore, the sea did but receive its own again. 

The country between Guimar and Santa Cruz 
is thinly populated. We passed two or three old 
churches or hermitages, but at considerable distances 



THE UNWELCOME CAMEL. 181 



from each other. This explained the presence of a 
black and yellow coffin in a certain rock hole near the 
road side. The coffin contained an occupant lying 
under a loose lid, fast decomposing in the lime which 
had been heaped over it. It may be that nothing 
except bones will remain when a convenient oppor- 
tunity for burial arrives ; or burial in consecrated 
ground may be avoided altogether. 

Another trivial incident of our journey may be 
mentioned. We were nearing the capital when the 
ungainly form of a camel came swinging along the 
high road. There are but two or three of these 
brutes in Tenerife, though Lanzarote and Fuerteven- 
tura have them by hundreds. The mare could hardly 
be expected therefore to take kindly to the apparition. 
A brace of paniers were hung across the camel's 
backbone, and on each side sat a peasant woman, 
rising and falling as if she were on the sea. The 
beast approached : the mare stopped still, set her 
ears back, trembled, and then bounded off at a 
tangent, almost transfixing me upon a hedge of aloes. 
Here I kept her until the grinning countrywomen 
had slouched uneasily by : but for the rest of the 
morning she saw camels in every gate or building by 
the highway. 

Thus we descended into the white city of Santa 
Cruz, on the afternoon of Holy Thursday, in time for 
a surfeit of religious processions, and to hear so inces- 
sant a clapping of muffled church bells that one's 
head revolted against the noise. Most of the shops 
were shut. The ships in the harbour carried their 
flags at half-mast. Citizens, with their wives and 



182 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



children, all in sleek black, walked about the 
streets with an air of depression, or entered the 
churches at intervals, to kneel with the crowd that 
covered the pavements throughout the day. Now 
and then, the precise step of a body of soldiers 
sounded heavily at the church porches. Headed by 
their officers, they marched up the aisle to the altar 
rails, knelt for two or three minutes, and then, with 
military clatter, retraced their way into the street. 

On the following day, Good Friday, we had to use 
strategy to leave the town. An official order for- 
bade other vehicles than the mail coach to pass 
through the streets. It was thought that the mare 
would be included as a vehicle. Accordingly, by tor- 
tuous ways, we avoided the viceregal palace, on the 
high road, where a military cordon was stationed to 
prevent such desecration of the day. The same 
trouble threatened us at Laguna, and might have kept 
us between the two towns for four and twenty hours. 
It was therefore with some trembling that we trod 
the grassy streets of the old capital. The mare 
made a pitiless uproar, poor beast, irritated by flies 
and the slippery stones, and many a citizen turned a 
hard eye of condemnation on us both as, wrapped to 
the nose in his cloak, he bent his steps towards the 
Cathedral. However, we got safely through, and a 
good gallop carried us far from the fringe of danger. 

After Santa Cruz and Laguna, we were careless of 
the knots of villagers in their best clothes — at 
Tacoronte, Matanza, Victoria, and Santa Ursala ; 
though they muttered, and tried to make the mare 
shy. The road between the various churches and 



RETURN TO PUERTO. 



183 



the Calvaries, whither the statues of the dead Christ 
were taken for the night, was bestrewn with rose 
and geranium leaves, and palm fronds were set in the 
ground in avenues. We caught glimpses of these 
processions here and there — priests in red robes, 
acolytes, lamps, banners, and images, and heard the 
dirges which went with them. But neither the mare 
nor I were disposed to stop for anything during this 
ride to Orotava. The flies goaded the poor animal 
so that she was almost beside herself. She found no 
relief except in brisk movement. As for Jose, it was 
vain to think that he could keep up with us on this 
road worthy of Macadam. He did not reach his 
stable in Puerto until the mare had been warmly 
embraced and welcomed by Lorenzo, her master, and 
had rested for two full hours after the various labours 
of the past week. 



CHAPTER XL 

Easter morning — A Guanche festival — Bencomo — The city of 
Laguna — Its history — The romance of Dacil and Castillo 
— The pestilence of Laguna — Ecclesiastical appropriations 
— Public festivities and mourning — The miraculous sweat 
— Some governors of the Canaries — Bishop Murga's in- 
junctions—The expulsion of the Jesuists — Laguna as 
it is. 

I rode from Orotava to Laguna on the morning of 
Easter day. The air was fresh and moist from noc- 
turnal rains. The vines were beaded with water- 
drops. Canaries and thrushes carolled from amid 
the blossoms of the roadside trees. The sea to the 
farthest promontories of the land was quiet and glis- 
tening. The white head of the Peak uprose through 
the clouds, against the blue. Nature was gay, as if 
she too .were celebrating a resurrection ; and she was 
calm, as if she were content with herself. 

According to Viana, the Guanches held a festival 
which in the calendar corresponds nearly with the 
Christian Easter. The last nine days of April were 
holidays. If the kings of Tenerife were at war one 
with another, they then established a truce. It was 
the time of harvest. And when this was got in, 



BENCOM O, THE KING. 



185 



games, feasting, and jollity were the order of the day 
until the truce ended. 

These joyous festivities were ushered in with cer- 
tain feudal ceremonies. The king sat in state, and 
received the annual homage of his people. The nobles 
bent the knee to him, kissed his right hand and said, 
" I am thy vassal." The more considerable of the 
commons followed their example, kissing the left 
instead of the right hand of the monarch. Lastly, 
the multitude of plebeians humbly presented skins 
and flowers, and, prostrate, kissed the king's feet, in 
token of their abject obedience as well as their vas- 
salage. 

If there were any privileges to be confirmed or 
grievances to be ventilated, no doubt such business 
followed this acknowledgment of fealty. But it is 
probable the Guanches neither had nor wanted a 
Magna Charta. From their Westminster Hall, they 
all flocked gaily to the sports which then were cele- 
brated. The king sat on a scaffold shaded by boughs 
and leafage, with his grandfather's thigh-bone in his 
hand, and gave the word for the troops of his realm 
to deploy before him in the sight of all the people. 

Would you have a sketch of King Bencomo as 
he was on this occasion, in 1494, while the ships 
of the Spaniards were already on the sea approach- 
ing the island ? He was a gigantic man, with 
a fabulous number of teeth in his head (sesenta 
muelas sin los dientes), broad and brown of face, 
with a wrinkled brow, loose hair, piercing black 
eyes, thick prominent eyebrows, a large, wide- 
nostrilled nose, heavy curled moustaches, fat lips, 



i86 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



a white beard down to the girth, brawny arms, 
covered with scars, sturdy legs, and small feet. His 
clothing was of the finest skins. He was choleric 
and fierce ; but otherwise he had every kingly virtue. 
Thus he sat, with his son and daughter (the fair 
Dacil), and his chief captains around him, and 
scrutinized his ten thousand warriors as they marched 
before him. 

Suddenly, this placid review is disturbed. Two 
captains, smitten with love for Dacil, disagree and 
fight, and their men join in the quarrel ; so that the 
hurly-burly of battle brews in a twinkling. In a rage 
the king leaps from his throne, and is about to speak 
and act with severity, when the combatants, at sight 
of him, draw apart. The enamoured captains ask 
pardon. It is granted, and straightway the next 
scene in the Easter festival begins. 

Tables are spread, and weighted Homerically. 
We see gofio, or flour of barley, milk, butter, honey ; 
among fruits, red strawberries and black cherries ; 
mushrooms and other fungi ; kidlings and lambs, 
goats and sheep roasted whole, and dripping with 
gravy ; cheese, old and new ; and other toothsome 
food. The feast continues merrily until the stars 
are out. Then there is singing and dancing, until it 
is time for sleep. 

The next day and the next are devoted to athletic 
games ; and thus, amid wrestlings and tournaments, 
eating, drinking, and all manner of junketing, the 
nine days of holiday draw to a close. 

It was at such a time as this, when the fun was at 
its height, that a hapless augur dared to forewarn 



GROWTH OF LAGUNA. 



187 



Bencomo that his kingdom was in peril from certain 
" white wings " then sailing over the sea. " By the 
bone of my grandfather ". . . . swore the king; and, 
as we know, for his candour, the augur was strung 
to a tree, to die ignominiously. It was a sad Easter 
for him, and the first of other sad Easters for the king 
and all his men. 

These picturesque events occurred in the neigh- 
bourhood of Laguna, which has since seen many 
curious sights, and now has an English hotel in its 
midst. 

This city of Laguna, or, to give it its full name, San 
Cristobal de la Laguna, is a very solemn place. It 
stands on a delicious plateau in the mountains, nearly 
2,000 feet higher than Santa Cruz, and five or six 
miles distant from it. In the sixteenth and the two 
following centuries, the Spanish colony with a capital 
on the seaboard, was doomed to suffer much at the 
hands of foemen. But Laguna, safe in its mountain 
nest, could laugh at Drake and Blake, and defy them 
to burn its records, or ravage its church plate from 
the sanctuaries. 

So early in the history of the Spanish occupation 
as 1561, Laguna had 7,220 inhabitants. Santa Cruz 
then numbered but 770. In 1670, Santa Cruz had 
risen to 3,728, and in 1706 to 6,847. This increase 
continued ; though Laguna still held the lead. In 
1797, however, by its successful resistance to Nelson, 
Santa Cruz gained the pre-eminence in Tenerife. 
Thanks to this, it was in 1803 declared to be " May 
leal, noble I Invicta Villa,'" much to the rapture of 
the citizens ; and in 1821 it was made the capital of 
the province of the Canaries. 



i88 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



In vain did Laguna plead its age, its salubrious- 
ness, gentility, holiness, and central position. In the 
intensity of its hatred for Santa Cruz, it even begged 
that the seat of the capital might be transferred to 
the island of Grand Canary, since the honour had 
gone from itself irrecoverably. This was very currish ; 
but it was in vain. The democratic seaport had 
triumphed, and Laguna began to decay in earnest. 

This old city had, like all cities, a very small be- 
ginning. At first it was but a coterie of native huts, 
set amid the woods bordering the small lake which 
gave it its name. Its stragetic value was recognized 
even by the Guanches, and as soon as the conquest 
was finished, the Spaniards chose it for the seat of 
Government. The land rises from the north and 
south shores of Tenerife, and forms an intermediate 
plateau about ten miles long and two broad, fertile 
and healthy. Here the city is built, surrounded by 
orchards and orange groves, with red volcanic hills 
cumbered east and west of it, and, twenty miles 
away, the cone of the great Peak soaring over the 
nearer mountain shoulders. The lake has now been 
drained away, and vines, grain, beans and potatoes 
have supplanted the woods of the plain. 

It was in the neighbourhood of Laguna, that Dacil, 
Bencomo's pretty daughter, and Castillo, one of the 
chief captains of the invading Spaniards, romantically 
met and loved. The augur who foreboded the ruin 
of the king, told the king's daughter that her husband 
was to come from across the sea, but that a thousand 
disasters of war were to happen ere they were married. 
The girl believed him, though her father believed him 



A GUANCHE ROMANCE. 



189 



not ; and, clad in her native skins, with her long 
golden hair over her shoulders, a string of beads 
round her fair neck, and bright eyes of expectancy, 
she wandered about the wood of Laguna, awaiting her 
fortune. Then came the ships, and, by a gracious 
accident, Castillo was commissioned to reconnoitre 
the land. Thirsty, he drew near to a spring, in the 
boughs of the laurel overhanging which lay hid the 
princess, fearful yet exultant. Her reflection in the 
water met his eyes, and, heedless of its source, he fell 
fast in love with it. Later, he looked for the reality 
thus brightly mirrored, and, having with difficulty dis- 
covered her amid the leaves, he gives her his heart at 
once. His eyes alone bear witness for him ; and he 
freely curses that " proud tower of Babel," which, by 
confusing the tongues of the earth, makes it impossi- 
ble for him to speak what he feels. In his sweet 
despair he offers her his hand, which Dacil, having 
from the outset been favourably moved towards the 
soldier, takes as if for guidance. Then Castillo vows 
that he is hers for life — " I live in you, and without 
you I die," and the first act in the drama is ended. 
Their love being reciprocal, let it go forth for the 
satisfaction of all romancers that the hidalgo and the 
savage were eventually united by Holy Church. 

The cruellest scene of all in the history of the 
Guanches, was also enacted here at Laguna. In 
the beginning of the war, the Spaniards were crushed 
by Bencomo. They had to withdraw to Santa Cruz 
to recruit and regain heart. In the meantime, the 
Guanches mustered in great force by the lake where 
now stands the city of Laguna. Here, while they 



190 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



tarried in arms, a pestilence came upon them. In 
ten days, 6,000 of them died. The dead bodies lay 
corrupting in heaps, adding to the mortality. Dogs 
preyed upon them, and grew so used to human flesh 
that they dared to attack the living Guanches as 
well as the dead. Thus, while the reinforced 
Spaniards on the coast were timidly speculating 
about the wisdom of an assault upon the strong 
position of the natives, these were dying fast by " the 
visitation of God." At length, an old woman en- 
lightened them about the state of affairs on the 
plateau. " What keeps you from going into the 
land ? " she asked, bitterly, " since every one is dead 
of the plague." This was exaggeration. Never- 
theless, the scourge was fatal to the native army. 
The Spaniards advanced, and, with a loss of only 
forty-five, killed seventeen hundred of the sickly 
and enfeebled Guanches. Within little more than 
another year of desultory skirmishes, the island was 
formally surrendered to Spain, Bencomo deposed, and 
the Princess Dacil baptized and married to Castillo. 

The later annals of Laguna have at least been 
free from bloodshed of this kind. With the founding 
by De Lugo of the Church " de la Concepcion," the 
city grew apace, so that in a few years thousands of 
stout Spaniards and their wives were established 
on its lands. So early as 1500, we find the city 
a municipality, enforcing the erection of houses in 
the plain, by ostracizing those people who built 
on the slope or " the upper town," and inflicting a 
heavyfine upon whomsoeversupplied them withbread 
wine, vegetables, and the other necessaries of life. 



THE QUARREL OF THE CHURCHES. 



191 



The clergy soon asserted themselves among these 
superstitious, blustering freebooters, who were now 
content to live and die in a state of civilized peace. 
They acquired grant after grant of property. The city 
became an assemblage of monasteries and convents 
— absolutely church-ridden. But, just as in later 
times Laguna was perpetually quarrelling with Santa 
Cruz, so, in the sixteenth century, it was ever full of 
intestine discord. The churches of the Concepcion 
and " los Remedios," both built soon after the con- 
quest, disputed for the privilege of the Corpus Christi 
processions. The municipal authorities decided in 
favour of " los Remedios," because it was the better 
building in finish and situation. The clergy of the 
Concepcion then laid the matter before Charles V., 
who, in 1523, decreed that the two churches should 
respectively have charge of the procession in alter- 
nate years. But even this great king's order had 
no permanent effect ; for, in 1746, the same question 
is brought before the sovereign, who again ruled 
"that the church " de los Remedios" do not call 
itself the principal, since the two churches are of 
equal eminence." 

Never was a city so promptly made amenable to 
the clerical yoke. For example, in 1526, it chanced 
that an important citizen married a certain woman, 
in disregard of the prohibition of the Bishop's 
Vicar-General. He was at once put under an inter- 
dict for his contumaciousness. It transpired then 
that, in spite of this, many of his fellow-citizens held 
intercourse with the spiritual outlaw. The city itself 
was therefore excommunicated. Public service was 



192 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



suspended. The dead were buried in uneonsecrated 
ground, &c. In their esteem for their fellow-citizen, 
the stalwart worthies of Laguna bore this awful 
penance for a while. Finally, however, it was 
arranged that the cause of the calamity should 
temporarily go into exile. 

Laguna ever professed to be a city of extreme 
loyalty. The king's accession and marriage, the 
birth of his offspring, and his death, were all cele- 
brated with great earnestness. The words " Let 
God be thanked, with bulls, illuminations, and other 
testimonies of joy " were often heard in the City 
Council chamber. Thus, in 1527, on the birth of the 
child who afterwards became Philip II., there were 
jousts and sports in abundance. Races were run for 
lengths of satin and damask (six yards for the first, 
four for the second, and three for the third) ; wine was 
set flowing in the streets ; twelve bulls were devoted 
to the amusement of the people ; and a sixpenny 
lottery was instituted. All the blue-blooded Spaniards 
who had left the old country, and found rich settle- 
ment in Tenerife, were convoked to join in the cele- 
bration ; and they were bidden to deck themselves 
and their horses with all the splendour of apparel at 
their command. 

Seldom, however, has Laguna been so aroused as, 
in 1648, by the miraculous sweat on the picture of 
St. John the Evangelist in the church of the Con- 
cepcion. The face of this painting was one morning 
found bedewed with what appeared to be common 
human sweat. Dignitaries, lay and ecclesiastical, 
hurried to see the miracle. To convince the 



THE MIR A CULOUS S WE A T. 



193 



doubting, and to confirm the faith of believers, the 
picture was wiped, the church closed, and every 
means of ingress officially sealed. Notwithstanding 
this, the painting continued to sweat, and so for 
forty days. It is easy now to explain this wonder as 
due to the separation (from sun, bad air, &c.) of the 
mercury and sulphur which composed the ver- 
milion used in colouring the face of the picture ; 
and, therefore, to identify as the sweat the little 
globular points of quicksilver which would naturally 
trickle down the canvas. But it is not so easy to 
understand the excitement caused throughout the 
whole island by what in those days could not fail to 
be regarded as a most conspicuous and local revela- 
tion of Divine power and favour. 

The many governors of the islands who lived at 
Laguna have provided some strange characters and 
suffered some curious vicissitudes. One governor 
embarked at Garachico for the island of Palma, 
on an official visit, and was transported as a fat 
prey to the Netherlands, then at war with Spain. 
The ship was a disguised Dutch privateer. Another 
governor spent six months as a prisoner among the 
Moors, who captured him and his vessel on their way 
to Spain. Don Miguel de Otazo, again, is memor- 
able for his quaint exit from the world. Though 
almost at the last gasp, he chose to be dressed and 
armed from head to foot, set in a chair of state, and 
allowed to brandish his sword with his dying 
arm. "Michael! Michael! what are you doing?" 
expostulated a father confessor who was present ; 
" remember that you are but dust and ashes." A 

H 



194 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



few minutes afterwards he died. Don Luis Mayony 
Salazar, a septuagenarian when he began his rule, 
was as obstinate a dying man as Don Miguel. The 
doctor wished to give him a narcotic. " Take it 
yourself ! " retorted the invalid. Excuses did but 
increase the governor's determination to be obeyed, 
and so from his death-bed he had the satisfaction to 
see his medical man swallow the dose, and fall 
fast asleep instead of himself. The old gentleman 
then died at his ease with a smile on his lips. Don 
Diego Navarro, another governor, by his arbitrary 
measures, wrought the mild Canarians into such 
hot hatred of him, that one night a multitude 
assembled under the moon, rang the church bells, 
took the obnoxious man out of his house, mounted 
him on a horse, accompanied him to Santa Cruz, 
and did not leave him until he was safely on board a 
sailing vessel just about to lift anchor for Europe. 
Don Andres Bonito, on the other hand, gained 
innocent fame as the first governor who climbed 
the Peak. 

Of the long line of bishops who have governed the 
islands in spiritual concerns, perhaps Don Cristobal 
de la Camara y Murga made the liveliest stir. He did 
not use brute force to gain the respect or at least the 
fear of his flock, like another Canarian bishop. This 
latter summoned the people together, and then, 
taking a cheese, cut it in half, and excommunicated 
one half — which half, to the popular alarm, was 
seen to be black, while the other half was of the 
common colour of cheese. Don Cristobal choose 
rather to reform abuses than work wonders. Thus 



CLERICAL INJUNCTIONS.. 195 



no sooner did he set foot in Grand Canary than he 
issued a pastoral, convoking a diocesan synod, " for 
the reformation of manners, and the establishment of 
a spiritual polity in the church in harmony with the 
decrees of the Council of Trent." Some of the insti- 
tutes here ordained are singular and instructive of 
the state of Canarian society in the year 1629. The 
clergy were to teach the Christian doctrine " at least 
every Sunday, and during Lent and Advent," either 
in class-rooms, or by chanting it in the streets. They 
were to adapt their sermons to their hearers, and 
avoid eccentric, subtle, dubious, scandalous, and the 
like subjects. The confessionals were to be in the 
most public possible parts of the church. Women 
were not to be shrived in the chapels nor in private 
houses ; but in open confessionals, separated from 
the confessor by a screen, grating or net ; and not 
before dawn or after vespers. Privilege to receive 
the Holy Communion daily was rarely to be granted, 
especially in the case of girls of doubtful virtue. The 
Eucharist was to be denied to felons under sentence 
of death. ... In treating of the clergy, it was 
ordained that their beards should be different to the 
beards of the laity : low and rounded, " to facili- 
tate reception of the Body and Blood of Jesus 
Christ." They were to wear the biretta, except 
when it rained, or the sun was hot, or at night, 
when a hat with a broad brim was allowable. Their 
gowns were to be of serge or cloth, black, and 
reaching to the instep. Their underclothing was to 
be clean, and their shoes were to be properly tied. 
Except for a journey, they were not to go abroad in 



196 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



short clothes, and then in gray, violet, or black 
stuffs. In travelling, they might carry a sword, but 
no other arms. They were not to use a cloak in the 
streets, squares, or markets. It was forbidden 
them to play at ball, to gossip, indulge in festivities, 
take part in politics, follow the chase, or keep dogs. 
They were not to take snuff before saying mass, 
nor for two hours afterwards, &c. On the important 
subject of images, it was properly decreed that "old 
and misshapen ones, provocative of laughter rather 
than devotion," were to be destroyed. 

In this elaborate work, Bishop Murga's energy 
was admirable ; but it was not universally appre- 
ciated, and many rejoiced when, in 1635, he was 
translated to Salamanca. 

In dwelling thus largely upon the clerical element 
of Laguna, one is historically just. It was the defect 
of the city that it was dominated by priests and 
priestly influences. It was also its ruin. In 1767 
came the expulsion of the Jesuits, and from that day 
Laguna, with its many churches and monastic 
establishments, lost ground. There was brief con- 
gratulation when, in 1817, the city received royal 
sanction for a provincial university. But in 1846 
this was degraded into a mere provincial institute, 
and now its spacious buildings, library of rare old 
quartos, and overgrown gardens, are the lounge and 
resort of barely half a dozen schoolboys. 

Laguna is a place to dream in. Its narrow, cobbled 
streets, are bordered by high, old mullioned houses, 
many with Corinthian portals, and exquisitely chiselled 
marble heraldic bearings over the doorways. Empty 




A LAGUNA PORTAL. 



THE DESOLATION OF LAGUNA. 



199 



palaces meet the eye, with cobwebs thick across their 
upper windows, fractured escutcheons, and basements 
now given up to hucksters who sell pimento and salt 
fish. Nor can the perfume of orange blossom, which 
blows from the tangled gardens of these mansions, 
charm away the melancholy that clings to them. 
The tiresome streets are as empty as the palaces. 
The echoing click of his horse's shoes upon the stones 
is the only sound the traveller hears ; though he may 
be suddenly startled by the clashing of bells from 
one or other of the tall dark church towers peering 
above the houses. This riot perchance sends his 
horse pelting through the silent thoroughfares, with 
a noise apt to wake the dead that lie dense under the 
pavements of the churches. But however it may 
affect the dead, it does not disturb the living of 
Laguna. Two or three postigos move on their 
hinges, and as many pair of black eyes look forth 
with mild inquisitiveness. That is all. Apparently, 
this old city is under a witch's spell, or some 
horrific ban of the Church, which still holds it inert 
and speechless. And no sooner is the traveller out of 
its depressing radius, past the final one of its many 
wayside crosses, and again between the cheerful 
hedgerows of the red volcanic fields, than he looks 
back upon the sombre place, its tall grey houses, 
touched with dingy green, and studded with mould, 
and its dark church turrets, with feelings of wonder 
almost akin to awe. 



CHAPTER XII. 



The Laguna Churches — Social difficulties — Scheme for the 
emancipation of women — A working men's club — Ecclesi- 
astical Treasures — The library — The Professor and his 
pamphlet — Superstitions — The burning of Judas Iscariot — 
A diocese without a head. 

Here in Laguna I fell among friends, and for five 
pleasant days lived like a Spanish knight successful 
in the lists. The large drawing-room of the house 
was littered with velvets and silks, lent to the church 
for the recent processions, and now to be stored out 
of sight. The sadness of Passion Week was over, 
and on this Easter evening, like Indians home with 
victims after a raid, we danced amid the silks and 
velvets. 

The next morning we went from church to church, 
to see the silver bravery of the altars, and the waxen 
flowers made by the deft fingers of the nuns. Much 
of the glory of these churches has evaporated, but 
there is still a wealth of woodwork, gilding, dis- 
comforting pictures, and grotesque figures of saints, 
to satisfy the craving after antiquities. In the 
Dominican church, we got as near to the inmates of 
the adjoining nunnery as unregenerate man may get. 
There are only four and twenty maidens in the estab- 



NUNNERIES. 



20I 



lishment now ; but their isolation is as emphatic as 
when there were three score. A stout iron trellis 
barricades the west end of the church. Behind it 
the nuns hear the echo of the mass and the sermons. 
This trellis is pierced at either end by a little hole. 
The one hole serves as station for the Dominican 
confessor, within the church, who thus listens to the 
invisible nun on the other side, while she disburthens 
herself of her trivial sins. The other orifice is large 
enough for the passage of a small cup. Hence, daily, 
the nuns receive the Eucharist. Man gets no nearer 
to them through the tiresome pilgrimage of their 
lives, than this priest pushing the holy wine from 
the church to the convent precincts. 

There is something in the Spanish temperament 
that, at least as much as her education, impels a girl 
to sigh for the seclusion of the convent. Were the 
number of nunneries in the island as great now as it 
was two hundred years ago, it is probable they would 
all soon have their full complement of inmates. 
Not long ago, indeed, a young girl, notwithstanding 
the protests of her parents, expressed her determina- 
tion to enter this Dominican nunnery of Laguna ; and, 
after other vain attempts to gain her purpose, stole to 
the church one day, and climbed the twenty feet of 
iron bars which separated the outer from the inner 
conventual life. Once within the nunnery, she stayed, 
and there she is to this day. 

To us, of England, it seems that the women of 
Spain are hardly used. They may not grow up, un- 
trammelled by irksome etiquette, like our own girls. 
They are pruned by that stupid blunt old knife of 



202 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



propriety until it is a wonder if, as maidens, they 
have any measure of self-confidence left to them, and 
no wonder at all if, as married women, they resolve 
to indemnify themselves for the many restraints 
which were formerly, with so much injustice, put 
upon them. The unmarried woman, so long as she 
is under the paternal roof, may be said to have no 
character. She bends, unresistingly, whichever way 
the string pulls. Until she is emancipated in spirit, 
therefore, it were imprudent to set her face to face 
on even terms with the outside world. And when 
the maiden becomes a wife, bred up as she has been 
bred, she is at the best but an indifferent companion 
for her husband. He therefore goes his way largely, 
and she, forsooth, may look abroad for her entertain- 
ment, if entertainment she needs. At the club he 
finds congenial souls ; and she may without difficulty 
gather to her other wives, who, like herself, pine for 
society, whether conjugal or otherwise. He loses his 
money at monte, or wagering in the cock-pits ; and 
she, willing to follow in his steps, according to her 
promise at the altar, finds she may just as easily 
empty the domestic purse at the feminine card-parties, 
which are the only dissipation at her command. Is 
it a marvel, then, that married life here is not as a rule 
very satisfying ? Or that maidens still crave, for lack 
of other chance of escape from the certain woes of 
the world, the cold retreat of the convent walls? 

Here are some suggestions for the amendment of 
society in the Canaries, taken from a recent novelette 
published in Tenerife " with a purpose." It is a 
gentleman who dares thus to champion the weaker 



CANARIAN SOCIAL LIFE. 



203 



sex ; and did not these propositions so forcibly indi- 
cate a manner of existence that must be grievous 
indeed to the sufferers, one could be amused at 
them : — 

" First. The duenna must be suppressed. 

" Second. From sunrise to sunset, let it be per- 
missible for a lady to go out-of-doors in our towns 
whenever she pleases. 

" Third. Outside the town and in the country, let 
it be permissible for two ladies to go about unattended 
— from sunrise to sunset only, of course. 

" Fourth. That when a young man pays a visit, it 
be not obligatory for the mamma to stay in the 
drawing-room the whole time, but that her daughters 
may safely be left to entertain the callers. 

" Fifth. That in the hours of darkness a lady may 
go out in the company of a gentleman who is either 
a friend or a relation. 

" Sixth. That unnecessary or absurd regulations 
be no longer protected simply and solely because they 
were in vogue in times past." 

Of course it is not difficult to understand why these 
severe rules of life have been instituted in a southern 
country like the Canaries. But here the end does 
not justify the means employed for its attainment. 
Neither priests nor people can aver that the morality 
of a people who have foundling hospitals in every 
town has touched the bounds of perfection. Com- 
mon sense, not coercion ! this is the cry among the 
more chivalrous men of the islands ; and they stand 
justified with their motives by their unswerving 
fidelity to the Church, although it is the Church 



204 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



which has to be thanked for the initiation and per- 
petuity of this social slavery. 

But if Laguna bears witness to its past in its two 
or three surviving monastic establishments, it can 
boast of an effort of concession to the march of 
modern enlightenment. The most splendid of its 
old palaces, that of the Marquis de Salazar, is now 
a working men's club. The builder of this superb 
piece of decorated work was one of the descendants 
from that stalwart old grandee of Castille, Lope 
Garcia de Salazar, who, in the time of Alonso the 
Wise (circ. 1284), is said to have had a hundred and 
twenty sons, who went to the wars escorted by a troop 
of forty of his sons, and who died in harness at the age 
of a hundred, fighting in siege of Algeciras. In con- 
nection with this house, a tale is told also of a certain 
native Tenerifan, one Botazo, who from his name 
may have had Guanche blood in him. Botazo, 
while engaged with others in its construction, killed 
a man in a brawl, and fled to Spain for safety. Here 
he had the luck to meddle in another brawl, whereby 
he saved the life of a courtier in so creditable a manner 
that the king summoned him to the palace. " What 
can I do for you ? " asked his Majesty. Botazo could 
think of nothing more congenial to his tastes than a 
skin of wine. The monarch straightway, without a 
thought of the consequences, awarded him a skin 
of wine daily for the term of his life. It is not 
recorded how long Botazo lived to enjoy this bene- 
faction. 

This palace, then, is now a club house, and we 
walked through the long high chambers, transformed 



THE WORKING MEN'S CLUB. 205 



into library, theatre, billiard-room, &c. ; saw the 
Laguna working man playing at chess, practising on 
the violin, and reading the daily paper ; and des- 
cended the broad cool staircase of lava into the 
dishevelled patio. My friend, one of the organizers 
of the innovation, was proud, with reason, of the 
success of the movement, but I would fain have had 
his marquiship back in his palace, silken hangings 
covering the bare walls as of yore, and the gentle 
faces of young high-born women brightening the 
rooms, instead of the squeak of violins, the rustle of 
journals, and the loud political arguments of a knot 
of contented cobblers. 

The churches of Laguna, though rich in tradi- 
tional interest, are not in themselves remarkable. 
The Cathedral is the Church " de los Remedios," in 
spite of the struggles of the Church of the Concep- 
cion. The white marble pulpit, supported by the 
figure of an angel, is beautiful, and, added to the 
influence of the Four Evangelists who are sculptured 
on its panels, ought to help in inspiring those who 
mount it. Here also lie the bones of Alonso de 
Lugo, the conquistador, whose image is reproduced, 
cap-a-pie, as a finial to the decorated reredos of 
most of the churches of Tenerife. In the Church 
of the Concepcion one may see the wonderful picture 
of St. John, which has now exhausted its ability to 
work miracles like the miracle of 1648. I was better 
pleased with a dainty little bronze bell, brought 
forward by the cur a of one of the older churches. 
An inscription in old German, and the date, 1551, 
seemed to link it with the Netherland States, then 



2o6 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



on the eve of their disruption from the Spanish 
Empire. The cur a himself, however, thought 
lightly of the relic, and would have sold it for a 
dollar. To him, a rude and horrifying wooden Christ, 
life size, blotched with blood and wounds, and elo- 
quent of painful dying, was a treasure indeed. This 
grotesque horror, which ought to have been con- 
demned under Bishop's Murga's rubric, was centuries 
of age, and had movable limbs. I daresay the 
sight of it, cunningly manipulated, has scared many 
a conscience, and moved hearts that a royal mandate 
would nowadays leave wholly unaffected. 

The library of Laguna, incorporated with the 
educational institute, would gladden a bibliomaniac. 
It holds about 20,000 volumes ; but such volumes ! 
Hardly a duodecimo among them ! For the most 
part they are portly quartos in parchment or vellum, 
first editions, issued from the more famous printing 
offices of Europe. They fill one large room from 
floor to ceiling, and stay on their shelves from the 
beginning to the end of the year, pleading in vain 
for patrons. The classics, and patristic, and 
Canarian literature seem to predominate. But 
lighter reading also has its niche, for during two or 
three hours of the day I spent within it, a chubby 
boy, one of the members of the deposed university, 
sat opposite to me enthralled in a big Robinson 
Crusoe, such as a book-loving cleptomaniac would 
have thought it his duty to lay hands upon. In 
Canarian literature — that Stygian pool ! — the library 
is of course particularly strong. A man might read 
for a year, and not exhaust this one subject. Perez 



A RECENT DISCOVERY. 



207 



de el Christo's reason in 1619 for putting forth his 
book served but too well as a precedent, so that later 
it seemed as if no one had a right to esteem himself 
a patriot unless he could point to a volume or a 
pamphlet about the islands from his own pen. " It 
is my own country," says Perez in his pathetic pre- 
face, " I was born and baptized in it, and that 
suffices to make me undertake this work." 

From the public library, we went to the private 
study of a modern savant, the Professor of Natural 
History to the Institute. This gentleman had re- 
cently made a discovery. Digging in a cave upon a 
seaside property, he had found a spear-head, in material 
like a stalagmite. This, to his joy, upon inspection, 
proved to bear certain marks, which were at once 
assumed to be relics of the Guanche language — in 
fact, the only existing relic of the kind. The good 
Professor was now, therefore, composing a pamphlet, 
to be published with the records of a Madrid learned 
society, and containing a full description of the 
innocent spear-head, with I know not what bulk of 
conjectures as an appendix. The age of the stone 
was put at B.C. 300: the scratches were to be read 
from right to left. Thus weighted with honourable 
responsibilities, it will be criminal ingratitude if the 
thing do not, in fact, turn out to be, as it is conjec- 
tured to be, veritable testimony of the Berber or 
Phoenician origin of the Guanches; and so, with the 
best intentions, led by his own amiable enthusiasm, 
this worthy man is adding his mite to the hillock of 
Canarian bibliography. 

I learn that in 'the Laguna district, as well as in 



2o8 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



other parts of the island, belief in the mal d'ojo 
(the evil eye) is common. An old woman with an 
ugly expression gets exalted into a witch, no doubt 
much to her delight and profit, as it is then con- 
sidered advisable to propitiate her. Again, when I 
meet a yoke of oxen in a wood, I must instantly 
look away, lest by inadvertence evil goes from out 
of me and enters into the beast, to the detriment of 
its owner. Laguna is full of broad-hatted priests, 
who can have nothing to do for most of their time. 
It would be a good work if they were to try to free 
their flock from some of their superstitions. But 
they no doubt would find it hard to discriminate 
equitably between one superstition and another. 

Had I arrived at Laguna in Holy Week instead 
of later, I might have had a surfeit of vestments, 
processions, and grievous singing. Religion here then 
puts forth all the pomp at its disposal. I am dis- 
appointed of another spectacle. In olden times, and 
even of late years, it was the custom to concoct a 
figure kin to our Guy Faux, dress him in smug 
respectable clothes and Hessian boots, embroider 
him with crackers and squibs, and, after subjecting 
him to much abuse, set him on fire. The dummy 
was of course Judas Iscariot, and the excitement of 
Holy Week never failed to bring the people, by 
Easter, to such a pitch of hatred for the traitor, that 
they vented their malice and revenge against it in a 
most realistic manner. Sometimes, indeed, the 
figure was gigantic, with a large hollow stomach, 
into which certain hapless cats were put. When, on 
Easter Day, the match was set to Judas, the cats natu- 



THE BURNING OF JUDAS. 209 



rally began to scream, and with the advance of the 
flames, and the tumult of abuse from the spectators, 
their screams waxed diabolical. The poor creatures 
were fortunate if, when the fire burnt an opening in the 
dummy, they could leap forth ere they were roasted. 

In Orotava, the holocaust used to end with a noisy 
lugging of the remains towards the sea-shore. The 
people whipped the body with all their might while 
it was within reach ; but eventually what was left 
of it was tied to a boat, taken into deep water, and 
there finally sunk out of sight. 

This year, alas ! there is no such spectacle. 
Funds are wanting, it is said. Perhaps, however, it 
may be due to the fact that the islands are tempora- 
rily without a religious head, and therefore supposi- 
tiously in a state of spiritual anarchy. The bishop 
died recently, and though a successor has been 
appointed, this gentleman declines the honour. I 
ask if the nominee holds the bishopric in contempt ; 
and learn that it is quite otherwise. It is etiquette 
to demur to promotion in the Church. Only when 
the higher authorities have convinced the bishop- 
designate that he is a better man than he thinks 
he is, and have argued him out of the last shreds of 
his humility — only then will he consent to take the 
dignity. In the meantime, however, he is as surely 
the bishop as if he had already been consecrated. 



15 



CHAPTER XIII. 



The Anaga Hills — The woods of Mercedes — A dainty greens- 
ward — The Anaga edges and abysses — The " Cruz del 
Carmen" — The "Cruz de Afur " — Taganana woods and 
village — The Cura — A rustic beauty — A Guanche idyl — 
" El Roque de las Animas " — The monk and the nuns — 
Bencomo and Zebensin— Tenerifan economics — Return up 
the " Vuelta 53 

Early one hot April day, my good friend of Laguna 
and I started for the romantic village of Taganana. 
This village nestles in a mountain hollow, facing the 
Atlantic to the north, and is only accessible by a 
track which winds along the summits of the central 
peaks of the Anaga Mountains. These mountains 
rise to the height of 3,000 feet, and are as fantastic 
as a crazy imagination can make them. Their steep 
sides and ravines are clothed with brushwood, ferns, 
and flowers, and forests of laurel and heaths ; but 
the peaks themselves are stern trachytic humps and 
pinnacles, grey and red, round which the cloud 
masses of one aerial current love to clash and 
struggle with those of another and contrary current. 
Our path was often therefore sublime, as well as 
dizzy and beautiful. 

My friend gave me his own horse, a white pink- 



THE LAGUNA LANES. 



2it 



nosed Andalusian, more than twenty years old, with 
an original sort of movement, but much vigour. The 
animal was sick in the lungs, I think, for it wheezed 
like an asthmatical subject, and sweated so that it 
soon soaked a coat I had laid athwart it. But the 
poor beast worked well. We were also accompanied 
by a man for each of our horses, and to carry the 
dinner which we proposed to eat sooner or later in 
Taganana. 

Though we were in the saddle by eight o'clock, 
the heat was oppressive, even in Laguna. A south 
wind was blowing, which in summer brings Santa 
Cruz to a purgatorial condition, and is at all times 
very warm. But it served our purpose, as in all 
other winds the Anaga hills begin to cloud over soon 
after dawn, whereas a south wind often leaves them 
wholly free for the day. 

Nothing could be more lovely than the country 
through which we rode from the grassy streets 
of the old city in the fresh morning air. The 
orchards were in heavy blossom, and as full of song 
as of perfume. Geraniums, aloes, wild roses, and 
the homely bramble, made a thick hedge by the track 
side. And we tripped between the big stones of the 
path, summoned every minute to return the hearty 
greeting of a peasant with an axe on his shoulder, 
a troop of bare-legged lasses bound for the city, 
singing at full pitch while they walked, or older 
women taking their eggs to the Easter market. 
Thus we rode into the woods of Mercedes, which 
form a cul de sac to the plateau of Laguna in the 
north-east ; and from the burning sun we stepped 



212 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



into a close cool shade as absolute as that of a 
pyramid of Cheops. From under our green canopy, 
we looked back at the glittering city, its fringe of 
scarlet hills, and the prodigious Pico de Teide, which 
swelled behind it towards a blue sky without a cloud. 

These woods of Mercedes are in every way charm- 
ing. Miniature cascades trickle down miniature 
defiles, and no drop of their precious liquid is wasted. 
In the valley below, the sum of the waters is collected 
in a conduit, and carried to Laguna and Santa Cruz. 
Here, the ilex, laurels, and other trees show their 
gratitude for the moisture by sheathing themselves 
in a verdure of moss and ferns that even Devonshire 
might be proud of. And the narrow red ruts in the 
soil, along which we stumbled uneasily, showed 
that in this part of Tenerife rain is an institution, 
and at times abundant enough to be embarrassing. 

From these cool natural grots and mossy glens, we 
ascended to the summit of the woods, and suddenly 
broke upon a stretch of turf, whence the hills fell 
boldly towards Santa Cruz and the south. There lay 
the city, like an irregular patch of snow by the blue 
sea. Over the water, too, the island of Grand Canary 
was very clear. But though beauty lay all around 
us, it was fairest under our very feet. The green 
turf was the brighter for countless bugloss and white 
iris. 

Leaving this heavenly spot, we made for the 
mountains and the mountain air. What indescrib- 
able vistas to the right and left of us, as we rode on 
the watershed of the acclivities ! In this part of 
Tenerife, the island forms a peninsula about ten miles 



PEAKS AND PRECIPICES. 



213 



long by five or six in width. Imagine, then, with how 
delicate and reserved a hand Nature has had to work 
to bring within this small compass mountains and 
valleys as high and as deep, and, I might almost say, 
as numerous as those comprised in the two or three 
hundred square miles of area of our own precious 
Lake District ! Giddy spurs sprang from our narrow 
path, and plunged down by a series of barbed pinna- 
cles, until their course was hid by their perpendicu- 
larity, or veiled by the light haze which lay at the 
bottom of the abysses. Here were dozens of exten- 
sions of the Crib Goch which has given old Snowdon 
its one element of awe. And contorted into the 
weirdest shapes, as if a sudden chill had come upon 
them in the midst of agonized writhings, and thus 
perpetuated their woes ! 

With an instinct of worship common to Orientals 
and Southerners, the Spaniards of Tenerife have built 
a chapel on the crest of this path to Taganana. The 
cross which precedes it, and still stands amid the 
herbs and wild flowers of the restricted plateau, is 
called " La Cruz del Carmen ; " and here the peasants 
keep periodic festivals, dancing and singing among 
the clouds, and on the edges of the precipices. There 
is but little level space around the chapel. This little, 
however, is bisected by two paths, each equally 
trodden. Men follow the path to the left ; women 
that to the right. This is an explicit survival of 
Guanche times, when it was a law that men and 
women when they met should go on their way by 
different roads, without interchange of speech — in- 
fraction of which law was punishable with death. 



214 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



A little further along the ridge, and we came to 
another cross, the " Cruz de Afur," set against a 
grey precipitous wall of lichened rock, tufted with 
heath. A third cross, the " Cruz de Taganana," 
marked the turning point on the very steep mountain 
which, concavely, guards the village to the south, 
east, and west. 

Between Mercedes and Taganana we passed only 
two or three habitations on these breezy heights, 
wooden chalets perched on precarious green slopes, 
that seemed apt to slide down to the depths with but 
slight stimulus from the winds and the rains. The 
tinkling of goat bells, and the horned heads of the 
goats among the bushes, told us that these were the 
mountain dairy farms of Tenerife. We saw also, in 
a dark glen, that seemed as unattainable by the mere 
aid of legs as the bottom of a coal mine, the small 
village of Tavorna, with a sugar-loaf hill brooding 
narrowly over its white houses. 

The wood of Taganana, through which we de- 
scended with difficulty to the village, takes first rank 
with the very few sylvan spots in this hot Atlantic 
island. It is as dense as a tropical forest. Its laurels 
grow to timber, and, with the heaths, all moss-clad 
and fern-becovered as to their trunks, are fifty and 
sixty feet high. Springs burst from the summit of 
this mountain about 3,000 feet above the sea, and 
perenially tumble their waters, by cascades and pel- 
lucid pools, into the village below. Northern vegeta- 
tion follows the descent of the rivulets, the ferns and 
grasses attaining a gigantic size : and when, after two 
hours' work, we get clear of the decaying trunks and 



IN TAG A NANA. 



215 



stones, and are on the hem of the village, we find 
bananas and palm trees as eager to profit by the 
water as, 2,500 feet higher, were the brackens and 
ivies of England and Scandinavia. 

The path down to Taganana is a severe task for a 
horse. La Vuelta de Taganana (the turning or zig- 
zag of Taganana), as it is called, is a spiral with sixty- 
four twists in it, some of which are at so small an 
angle that a horse slides down them, whether he 
likes it or not. 

Once again we rode at length from the shade of 
the forest into the full blaze of a southern sun. The 
heat in the red-roofed little village was indeed quite 
suffocating. The very sea in front of us shone with 
a quiet but intense glare that made one gasp to look 
at it. And so by the time we had stumbled into the 
Plaza, and to the door of the white church, we felt 
completely unstrung, and demoralized in body. We 
sat on a low wall sheltered by some pepper trees, 
gave up the horses, and left to the men the work of 
finding a hospitable citizen who would lend us a 
cellar, as the most desirable of dining-rooms on such a 
day. 

Then came the priest of the village, a white-haired 
old man, and a friend of my friend's. He had lived 
in this quiet little nook for thirty or forty years, hardly 
ever leaving it for a day or two in the large towns so 
near and yet so hard to reach. Inn there was none 
in the place ; but his own house, a square ochre 
building, with a clump of dragon trees and palms at 
its eastern corner, was at our disposal. It was on 
a ledge of rock two hundred feet above us : a climb 



2l6 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



out of the question on such a day ! And so we ate 
our eggs and bread, and drunk our wine where we 
were, under the curious gaze of the women of the 
house. 

Taganana claims to rear the finest women in 
Tenerife. Even the priest acquiesced when my friend 
quoted a saying about the virtue and the beauty of 
the ladies of his flock. " But," he added, " they 
are neither so good nor so beautiful as they ought to 
be. Like others, they are getting to have their own 
way too much, and it does not become them." How- 
ever, we had the fortune to see one swarthy, blue- 
eyed woman with long black hair, who might well 
have moved a misanthrope. She had the bold, almost 
impudent, expression of a gipsy, and suckled a child 
in public. Her mother was reputed to have been 
even handsomer than herself ; and for many years an 
object of interest to visitors as " the beauty of Taga- 
nana." These two women may be representatives of 
the Northmen, who, according to a legend, set foot 
in the place before the Spaniards came. They may, 
on the other hand, be descendants of royal Guanches; 
for it was in these overhanging woods, to the music 
of doves and falling water, that the Princess Guaci- 
mara, daughter of the king of Anaga, and the love- 
stricken Ruyman, carried on their sweet unconscious 
courtships, disguised from each other, what time 
their sires and friends were straining nerve and sinew 
against the Spanish invaders. Viana tells the story 
in his epic. 

But the mildest sketch of Taganana would be 
imperfect if no mention were made of the extra^ 



THE CLIFFS OF TAGANANA. 217 



ordinary rocks on the east of the village, and the 
no less eccentric mountain pinnacles to the west. 
The former are two in number, the one conical, and 
the other abrupt, precipitous, and unscalable. The 
bolder of the two is indeed a fair diminutive of the 
Matterhorn, though its red scar knows nothing of 
snow. Where it falls into the sea it may be fifteen 
hundred feet perpendicular, and it offers a tempt- 
ing climb of many hundred feet, nearly " as steep as 
a house," from the level of the village. The priest 
called it, " El Roque de las Animas" (the Rock of 
Purgatory) ; and the name is a good one. The two 
mountains are commonly called "the Men." 

As for the serrated pinnacles in the west, wrought by 
rude Titanic gashes in the ridge of a mountain, the 
insulated rocks shapen fantastically by wind and 
weather, they are known as " the Monks and the 
Nuns." The good priest had no difficulty in dis- 
tinguishing the ladies from the gentlemen ; but the 
story itself was too scandalous to be communicated. 
Seen from the north-western extremity of the 
Taganana hollow, they are very striking, with bushes 
of golden gorse where they break from the mountain 
mass. 

In spite of the heat, we suffered the cur a to lead 
us to the seaward boundary of his parish. Else, 
he said, we should miss a grand scene of shore 
cliffs and surf ; and he was right. From the edge 
of the valley of Taganana, where the land slopes 
steeply into the sea, we looked east at the pointed 
islets of Anaga, basaltic rocks not unlike our home 
" Needles"; and west to the Punta del Hidalgo, 



218 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



another astounding agglomeration of mountain-tops, 
like the fretwork of a huge saw running out into 
the sea. 

Where we stood among the aloes and dusty fig- 
trees on the boundary of the village, we were also, 
unconsciously, on the limits of the old principalities 
of Anaga and Hidalgo. For into such petty realms 
was Tenerife subdivided after Tinerfe's decease. Of 
the master of this Cape of Hidalgo, a story survives 
which is but another tribute to the sterling worth 
of Bencomo, the King of Taoro. Zebensin, the 
Achimencey of the district, was son of a bastard 
of Tinerfe, and as such was of less esteem than the 
legitimate princes of the nine greater divisions of the 
island. The appellation Achimencey (poor knight 
— Hidalgo — or ruler) was given to him in contrast 
with that of Mencey, borne by the other sons. 
And he seems to have exemplified the hard con- 
demnation whereby the sins of the fathers (if among 
the Guanches bastardy could have been regarded 
as a sin in the sire) are visited upon the children. 
His principality was only a seabound promontory, 
and so he stole what he needed from his neighbours. 

The aggrieved shepherds bore their losses for a 
time, but eventually complained to Bencomo. This 
sturdy king at once set forth from his palace, 
alone, and incognito. When he reached the cave of 
Zebensin, he found that princeling about to dine 
on a kid which he had cooked with his own hands. 
Without preface, and using the roast meat as a 
text for his upbraidings, Bencomo dilated to his 
half-cousin on the iniquity of his conduct, in living 



THE SCAPEGRACE PRINCE. 



219 



upon the hard-acquired possessions of others. The 
Hidalgo (Achimencey) stammered excuses, and, on 
the pretext of seeking food fit to be set before the 
King of Taoro, tried to leave the cave. But Ben- 
como, taking him by the arm, detained him, and, 
with angry eyes, bade him take no trouble about 
preparing meat and drink for him. " Be warned," 
he said, "and know that a prince must not live upon 
the blood of his unfortunate vassals, whom he ought 
always to regard with the loving care of a father. 
Give me gofio and water, and that will be for me a 
banquet delicious beyond anything." 

Bencomo, with his own fingers, mixed the flour and 
water, and then ate the dough, unseasoned even with 
salt. "Ah, cousin Zebensin," he continued, "if only 
you knew how savoursome this is, when compounded 
by clean hands, and eaten at the expense of no 
tears from the poor ! Tender kids and fat lambkins, 
cooked in milk, but cruelly reft from their dams, and 
from the bosoms of the helpless shepherds, will, so 
far from making you rich, only make you detestable 
and deserving of all my wrath." 

One is glad to know that the scapegrace prince 
took this lesson to heart. He professed repentance 
and determination to amend his life ; and, confiding 
in him, Bencomo recommended the convert to his 
cousin the Prince of Tegueste, who gave him the 
control of a hundred shepherds. 

The poor knight of the Punta no doubt rejoiced 
in his reclamation to the paths of virtue. For 
Tegueste is now, as it was then, one of the most 
smiling provinces in Tenerife. A carriage road runs 



220 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



down to it, between the mountains, bordered by 
blue gum trees, cork trees, and geraniums, and its 
rich lands are devoted to vines and country estates 
for the prosperous merchants and officials of 
Laguna and Santa Cruz. The Punta, on the other 
hand, is a hard sterile rock, projecting into the 
sea. 

Taganana, from its situation at the base of a 
great amphitheatrical mountain, boasts of good soil, 
and abundant harvests of everything except barley, 
which seems choked by the heat. But elsewhere 
in the neighbourhood, and indeed all over the 
island, the inevitable results of reckless denuda- 
tion are being felt. No sooner were the Spaniards 
in Tenerife than they began to cut down and even 
to fire the forests, without a thought of posterity. 
Two centuries of this work changed the character 
of the island largely ; water grew scarcer every year ; 
and then the Government interfered. But even now 
the charcoal burners give the high pines little rest ; 
and though the Government nominally preserves the 
forests, it seems to be indifferent to the wisdom of 
replantation. Thus, when phenomenal rains come, 
the more precarious vineyards and grainfields, 
deprived of the shelter they got from the patches 
of woodland behind or above them, yield before 
the downrush of the quick waters, and, like the 
swine of Gadarene, slide headlong into the sea or 
the subjacent valleys. Every score of years many 
score of careful acres disappear wholly from the 
bare rocks upon which they were either laboriously 
raised, or had been brought into cultivation, when 



PRIMITIVE HUSBANDRY. 



221 



laurels, chestnuts, or pines, offered them some pro- 
tection and encouragement. 

Under these circumstances, and considering the 
fabulous fertility of the best kind of it, land in 
Tenerife is very costly. Everything, however, 
depends on its vicinity to water, without which 
it were but dust and ashes, save in certain parts 
of the Laguna district, and in the cloud zones. 
In the Vale of Orotava, £300 an acre is paid ; but, 
as a set off, it must be remembered that the returns 
are there almost mathematically sure. The fields 
are irrigated by strong canals of cement, and by due 
payment of the water rate for so many hours' flow 
per week, this, the only incentive to full crops that 
is needed, is assured. In the Laguna district, how- 
ever, where irrigation is not thought to be essential, 
because of the frequent rains, occasional years of 
ruin diversify the life of the agriculturist, as with 
us in England. 

Farming implements are primitive in Tenerife. 
An improved exhibition plough serves as a spectacle 
of wonder ; but no one thinks of substituting such 
an invention for the simple cross-sticks, like the 
old Highland caschroms or cascheedas. These have 
served generations, and are likely to serve as many 
more generations. The other day someone intro- 
duced washballs among the peasantry in a certain 
part of Tenerife. They were tried for a brief time, 
then universally discarded. Clear spring water, a 
couple of pebbles, and some native soap, were much 
preferred. 

The principles of economics seem to be but feebly 



222 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



understood here. A man wishing to buy an estate 
or a house would be asked to pay a preposterous 
sum. He could get the same property, however, 
by advancing upon it in mortgage half, or even a 
quarter, of its market worth. A man does not borrow 
money upon his land until he has brought his mind 
to the wrench of parting with it. When he borrows, 
therefore, he assumes that he is selling. He does 
not think of repaying the loan or mortgage, but 
chuckles if he can coax the mortgagee, in a friendly 
way, to advance him a little more money upon the 
title deeds. Thus the chain tightens, and in time 
he quite acquiesces in the legal conveyance to which 
he was from the first thoroughly resigned. In this 
way, property worth twenty thousand dollars passes 
into other hands for five thousand dollars. 

But I am wandering indeed from sunny Taganana. 
When the cum had shown us his landscapes and 
the more beautiful of his parishioners, and the little 
church, odorous with rose-leaves, and curious for 
an emblematic picture where Death is portrayed 
hewing his victims limb from limb with a madman's 
ferocity — then, he said, we had exhausted Taganana. 

Besides, we had the terrible ascent of the Vuelta 
before us. In truth, this was a most formidable 
business. One of our men had drunk all the wine 
we had left, which was much ; and he was therefore 
incapable. My horse sweated and stumbled and 
gasped till the still woods echoed with its groans and 
efforts. Of course I did not ride the poor animal. 
But I could not prevent the drunken man hanging 
on to her long white tail, though at the peril of his 



A STEEP ASCENT. 



223 



life. The other day, in the course of this climb, a 
horse had fallen over into the stream, where it purled 
eighty to a hundred feet below ; but neither that 
nor any humanitarian notions would prevent a tipsy 
Spaniard from working his beast to the uttermost. 

After an absence of ten or eleven hours, we 
reached Laguna in the short gloaming, when the 
Peak in the distance was capping itself for the night. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Traditions about the Peak — First Account of an Ascent— 
Preparations for the Climb — Our Start — Glorious Day — 
In the Clouds — Above the Clouds — El Pico de Teide — 
Stages of the Ascent — The Retama Plain — Obsolete Hard- 
ships — At the Foot of the Pyramid — The Estancia — Bed- 
making and Eating — Sunset — A Restless Night — On by 
Moonlight — An Unexpected Meeting — The Rambleta— 
Sunrise — On the Summit — In the Crater — Hot and Cold — 
Sulphur Men — The Ice Cave — The Descent. 

" Since experience proves that a man cannot breathe 
on the top of the Peak of Tenerife ..." From this 
unsound predicate, Jacob la Pereyre, an ancient 
author, writing about the Universal Deluge, makes 
the terrible deduction that, if the Flood had risen a 
few yards higher, no one would have been able to 
breathe in the Ark. 

Before mountain climbing came into fashion, others 
besides this old writer had exaggerated ideas of the 
Peak. Gregorio Leti, a biographer of Philip II., 
says of it, " There is in Tenerife a mountain so im- 
measurably high, that it is impossible to climb it 
without great difficulty, and in less than three days. 
Hence it is believed to be the highest in the world. 
Nevertheless, it is said that from its base to its very 
summit are to be found the dwelling-places of a 



EARLY ASCENTS OF THE PEAK. 



number of people, absolutely wild and cruel, and 
that they are more like ferocious beasts than reason- 
able beings." Even so late as the beginning of this 
century, certain geographers held to the opinion that 
the Peak was nowhere surpassed in height. But the 
ipse dixit of Leti's about natives residing on its sum- 
mit is very odd, when we remember that for cen- 
turies this has been a crater of hot sulphur. A man 
might as reasonably be said to reside in a half- 
quiescent lime-kiln. 

Neither the Guanches nor the early Spaniards felt 
much affection for the Peak itself. Its very name 
was hurtful to polite ears — Echeyde (Hell) ; from 
which, of course, the more modern Teide is a simple 
transition. So long ago as 1402, in a navigation 
treaty between England and France, reference is 
made to the piracies of a certain Norman, Bethen- 
court, the original conqueror of Lanzarote and 
Fuerteventura, and to Tenerife as the "He d'Enfer!" 
And certainly, if, in the middle ages, the cone rising 
from the sea more than 12,000 feet was then (as it is 
said to have been) in a state of constant eruption, 
the sight of it, visible, according to Humboldt, for a 
circuit of 260 leagues, must have been very impres- 
sive to generations of men prone to see diabolical 
agency in all uncomfortable phenomena of nature. 
Hence, too, the Spanish peasantry called it " the 
devil's cauldron, in which all the food of hell is 
cooked." 

Perhaps the first detailed account of an ascent of 
the Peak is that by Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, in 
the infantine days of the Royal Society. It narrates 

16 



226 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the trials of certain English merchants in 1650. 
These gentlemen were probably the local agents for the 
sale in England of the wine of the Canaries, which 
was then in full fame. But their loyalty was soon 
to be shrewishly requited by the marriage of Charles 
II. with a Portuguese princess, and the consequent 
patronage of Portuguese, and notably Madeira 
wines, to the detriment of the Canarian trade. They 
got to the top, having felt many portentous trem- 
blings of the earth on the way. But, when they 
came to open the luncheon-basket, they found their 
wine so congealed that it had to be thawed, the 
brandy debilitated, and the wind so strong that they 
could scarcely drink the health of the King of 
England, or fire a volley in honour of His Majesty. 
These good royalists were doubtless made much of 
when they safely returned to the lowlands ; and their 
performance has gained them immortal fame in the 
Transactions of the Royal Society. 

But let the truth be told. Among all the moun- 
tains of the globe, there can be few of the same 
height as the Peak to compare with it for the ease 
with which it may be ascended. Though its final 
3,500 feet are steep, with an inclination of from 
35 to 42°, the average slope is not more than 12*30°. 
From first to last, life is never endangered. It is not 
even necessary to pass a night on it. By leaving 
Orotava in the evening, and travelling through the 
darkness by the aid of the moon or torches, it is 
possible to be on Teide before sunrise. Nor is the 
night that is conventionally spent between the big 
boulders, known as the English halting-place 



OUR BOLD COUNTRYWOMEN. 227 



(Estancia de los Ingleses), by any means so arduous 
an experience as one expects to find it. A camp in 
the open air at an elevation of 10,000 feet ought to 
be a little trying ; and that is all that it is. But 
when the deed is done, and duly subjected to quiet 
analysis in retrospect, one is forced to admit that the 
toil is trivial, and amply compensated by the scenic 
and other rewards attendant upon it. 

We made our ascent on May 11 and 12. By 
the Spaniards, it was thought to be rather soon in 
the year : to their warm imaginations the least snow 
seems a very formidable obstacle to mountain climb- 
ing. What, then, were they likely to think of the 
two Englishmen who, so early as March 12, to- 
gether with two or three ladies, had dared to make 
the trip ? Indeed, events seemed to prove that these 
brave compatriots of ours were somewhat hare- 
brained. For, though they safely reached the top, 
over the sheets of ice which masked the Piton, as 
the cone is called, it was at no little risk, seeing that 
they were unprovided with ice-axes. Moreover, they 
fell out with their guides, who stayed below, leaving 
them to their own bold wills. And as for the ladies, 
they gave it up after a while, reserving what little 
strength and breath remained to them for the con- 
gratulation of their lords when these descended with 
the glow of victory upon them. But for many weeks 
after this exploit the Spaniards of Tenerife used the 
word loco (fool, or madman, according to your humour) 
and Englishman almost as if they were synony- 
mous. Nor dare I repeat for English readers what 
a stalwart old hidalgo said to me in free comment 



228 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



upon the part played by our countrywomen in the 
excursion. 

We started from Puerto at seven o'clock in the 
morning, under the care of Diego Zamorra, a guide. 
Zamorra is not the best guide of the place, but his 
betters happened, on this occasion, to be out of the 
way. We were a party of three caballeros, and, to 
look after our horses, and attend the two mules that 
accompanied us, laden with overcoats and wraps to 
keep us warm in the night, Diego took with him a 
brace of stout boys ; so that in all we mustered six 
human beings and five brute beasts. As provisions, 
we carried good store of roast chickens, soup, eggs, 
bread, butter, and cheese, and some bottles of wine, 
all provided by our hotel ; a sack of potatoes and 
gofio for the boys' supper ; and, lastly, a barrel of 
water. The water was a very important article of 
freight, for we had to traverse a parching desert of 
pumice sand, quite innocent of springs, and for more 
than twenty-four hours, to be wholly dependent for 
our supply upon what we carried. 

Our cavalcade made a stir as we rode through the 
streets of the red-roofed little town. Diego and the 
boys knew everyone we met — from the big, brown, 
bare-chested driver of the span of oxen going out 
into the fields, to the withered little old crone hurry- 
ing her one goat from door to door, with a tin cup in 
her hand to measure the milk she sold as she went 
along. It is not every day that Teide is assailed, 
and therefore people of all ages, and many different 
professions, came to their doors when they heard our 
men's proud babble to their friends about the English- 
men and El Pico. 




A 



GOATHERD OF TEXERIFE. 



OUR START. 



231 



Nor was I less elated than the men. It was a 
glorious day. The sea below us did but ripple under 
the blue sky, save where it throbbed into white foam 
on the rough black lava shore. The country was in 
summer beauty. The geraniums were still in flower, 
as pertinaciously as if they bloomed but for one 
month instead of twelve months in the year. 
Oleanders sweetened the air. The vines had leafed 
and begun to blossom. The fig-trees and mulberries 
were darkening with ripe fruit. Myriads of poppies, 
red and yellow, twinkled in the grain fields, though 
many a bronze patch showed where barley had 
already been cut and carried. Stately palms, broad, 
ragged bananas, glossy eucalypti, and great aloes 
were on all sides of us, cheek by jowl with our own 
humble daisies. The villas of this happy country 
were as gay as its vegetation. They stood forth 
from a bower of foliage — red, blue, buff, green, yellow, 
white, or brown, sometimes stencilled in pretty 
patterns ; they and their surroundings alike reflected 
in the still pools of the water tanks, which are a 
necessary appurtenance of every garden. Of the 
Vale of Taoro or Orotava as a whole, I have already 
said something. But on this particular day, to its 
other constituent parts must be added a straight bank 
of motionless black cloud, which hangs down the 
mountain-side to within about 3,000 feet of the sea. 
We cannot see through or above the cloud. But our 
climb through and above the cloud is to be one of 
the stages of our work towards the Peak. The Peak 
itself is invisible : the bank of cloud over the valley 
had not lifted for nearly a fortnight. Out at sea, 



232 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



fifty miles away, it could be seen ; but to us, close at 
hand, it was a mere matter of faith. 

We climb through the valley, past the two remark- 
able volcanic humps which are so bold a feature of it 
to the village of Palo Blanco, almost on the hem of 
the [overhanging vapour. Tropical vegetation is 
now below us ; we are among budding chestnut 
trees, potato fields two months later than those on 
the sea level, meagre barley, and pear and cherry 
trees instead of figs, bananas, and oranges. Close 
at hand, to the right, is the precipitous wall of 
Tigayga (so named after a brave Guanche warrior), 
about 7jOOO feet above the sea. It is in the pro- 
foundest shadow, thanks to the clouds. Not even 
the profuse fresh verdure of its steep ravines can do 
much to modify the gloom of its great precipices. 
And here we leave behind us the two famous villages 
of the Upper and Lower Realejo, so closely asso- 
ciated with the history of the conquest. 

As Palo Blanco offers us our last chance of fresh 
water, we halt by its fountain. One by one, the 
animals are allowed to take a long and a strong pull. 
Poor beasts ! they seem to understand that they 
have an unpleasant prospect before them. They 
drink and drink, until Diego wrenches them violently 
from the trough ; and then they stand aside, and 
watch the next animal having its turn, with eager 
eyes and nervous ears, ready to make a rush the 
moment the man's attention is relaxed. 

Hitherto, the track has been a thoroughfare of 
some importance. We have had rocks and stones to 
clamber over which we would have avoided if we 




A BEGGAR OF TENERIFE. 



GEXIAL MENDICANTS. 



235 



could ; but we have never been out of touch with 
human beings. Country people descending to sell 
their market stuffs were constantly, to their surprise, 
coming upon us. In the fields, too, were men and 
boys, weeding or hoeing their potatoes. And children 
of all ages, bright-eyed and alert, seemed ever on the 
look-out for such objects of interest as strangers. 
" Mariquita ! " screams a beldame from her hovel 
porch to a well-grown lass at work in the fields a few 
hundred yards ahead of us, " make haste, and be 
ready to ask the gentlemen for a quartite when they 
pass you.'' A quartite is rather less than a half- 
penny, but it is enough to stir the desire of Mariquita : 
and so, when we reach the boundary of her field, 
there she stands, with her large dark eyes full of ap- 
peal, and her brown little palms outstretched as she 
beseeches for a " quartite, senor, quartite I " 

This unabashed begging is quite a strong feature 
in Tenerife, since the English have acquired the habit 
of visiting the island. The children beg, whether 
they want anything or not. Their parents turn them 
all loose upon a stranger whenever the chance offers. 
They plead laughingly, but with a perseverance 
that does not incite their victims to laugh. How- 
ever, this time we sent Mariquita back to her 
potatoes with a smile of real contentment on her 
face ; and, ere we were in the clouds, we could hear 
her singing away like the larks above her, while 
she broke the red earth with her old-fashioned hoe. 

For the next half-hour or more, we ascend through 
a sparse wood of heaths, with the fog grey and per- 
sistent all around us. We naturally button our 



236 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



coats as we enter this zone of vapour. But it is 
only for a minute or two ; as we soon realise that the 
cloud is a dry cloud, and that we are rising through 
it to approach a region of heat instead of cold. 
We have gone but a little way, in fact, ere it is 
apparent that the sun is shining brilliantly above 
us. And so, at an altitude of 4,030 feet, we 
emerge from the shadows, and look around to dis- 
cover that we are in the clear upper air, with a sky 
of the purest blue over our heads, and a powerful 
sun in the heavens. The summits of the lower 
slopes of the Peak, and the long back of Tigayga, 
seem close to us in this refined atmosphere. They 
are suffused with a lovely coral-pink and blue haze, 
through which the scant bushes of retama, which 
alone diversify them, gleam like spots of silver. 
Towards the head of the Guimar valley, on the 
south side of the island, the rocks are a dazzling 
crimson, due to the ferruginous nature of their 
volcanic earth. But the oddest impression of all is 
that of the very clouds just left beneath us. They 
stretch from the one great mountain flank of the 
valley to the other — the dark masses looming 
from them like islets in a sea. The vapour hangs 
immobile in mid-air, with a broad, undulated sur- 
face, in the most singular of contrasts with the 
distant fringe of blue sea, which forms our horizon, 
I know not how many miles away. The cloud 
was tenuous enough when we were enfolded in it ; 
but, viewing it at our feet, and from the untroubled 
upper air, we pity our friends in Orotava, that 
they are cloaked from the sun by a nebulous stratum 



THE RETAMA. 



239 



of such apparent weight, opacity, and obstinate de- 
termination. It is a distinct migration from northern 
to southern climes. Swallows are soaring about our 
heads, happy in the sunlight, and quite careless of 
the serious fact that they are nearly a vertical mile 
above the sea. 

But with this change in our surroundings begins 
the real heat and toil of the day. Of course, there 
is no more shade to be expected. The only vegeta- 
tion hence to the other side of the Peak, ten 
miles away, is the retama, a shrub in close affinity 
with the 

Odorata ginestra, 
Contenta dei deserti . . . . ; 

and though on the pumice plains the retama broadens 
so that its branches attain a total girth of forty or 
fifty feet, it is never tall enough to cast a shadow of 
service to man. The track winds upwards by tiny 
defiles in the grey rock debris, until it brings us to a 
land of absolute desolation. From slopes of yellow 
pumice dust, hard to climb, and suffocating alike to 
man and beast, we clamber towards masses of reddish 
lava, sharp and irregular, and to the eye as fresh and 
capable of annoyance as if it had flown forth from 
the side of the Peak only the other year. The 
brilliant lichens which fasten upon the lower lava, 
and hasten its decomposition, are lacking here. 
Everything, in short, is lacking, save the burning 
sun above us, which radiates from the fused iron 
under our feet to a degree that makes us gasp. 

This being so, it is hard to condemn our guides 
for the want of self-control that is proverbial with 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



them in an ascent of Teide. They are for ever 
falling into the wake of the mule that carries the 
water-barrel, and one after another seizes a moment 
when he thinks he is unobserved, to pull out the 
plug, and tilt some liquor down his parched throat. 
Muy bonito (very pretty!), remarks Diego, with 
an indefinite wave of his hand over these hideous 
mounds of red and russet lava ; and, under this 
pretence of devotion to the interests of his employers, 
whom he hopes he has thereby adequately diverted 
from himself, he goes in the rear to the barrel. 
After a time, however, we decide to keep our water 
mule in front. A little of such larceny is permissible, 
whereas much might be disastrous. 

We are more than 5,000 feet up before we round 
the mountain shoulders sufficiently to get our first 
view of the Peak from high ground. It peeps over a 
near heap of scoriae with an. affectation of littleness 
that might have deceived us. But the guides were of 
course on terms of acquaintance with it, and hailed 
the diminutive pink-purple cone with a convincing 
shout of, " El Pico de Teide ! El Pico ! El 
Pico ! " By and by, we saw more of it. The 
ethereal beauty of its summit was modified by 
the stern black lava pyramid upon which it appeared 
to stand, even though the lava, in its turn, was 
made somewhat less depressingly gloomy by the 
white veins of snow which scored it. It continued 
to swell upwards as, little by little, we rose to the 
level of the great crater-bed of the Canadas, in one 
part of the circumference of which it is set with 
the completest symmetry ; so that, by one o'clock, 



THE PEAK IN SIGHT. 



241 



when we were on the skirts of the crater, and 6,000 
feet above the sea, we saw it before us from base 
to summit. It was then a superb spectacle, but 
its angle of elevation seemed so very steep that I 
fancy we viewed it with feelings of alarmed respect 
as much as admiration. But we were tired and 
scorched, and not in a fit state for judicious ap- 
praisal of the old volcano's difficulties. And long 
ere we had finished our lunch — sprawled on the hot 
sand, in the middle of a Titanic coil of scoriae, and 
under an improvised screen of wraps and retama 
bushes — we voted the Peak a hill of infinite as- 
sumption, and ourselves able to manage a mountain 
twice its height, with guides or without them. 

The ascent of Teide, from Orotava, may be con- 
veniently divided into a certain number of stages. 
Of these the first must end with the Monte Verde, 
or Green Mountain, where we were in the clouds and 
among the heaths. The second is the Portillo, or 
entrance to the Canadas. We were close to it when 
we lunched at mid-day. It is an imaginary gate to 
the third stage, on the Piano de Retamo, or Plain of 
the Retama, a wearisome plateau of yellow pumice, 
varied with blocks and small fragments of obsidian, 
and studded with the welcome shrub that gives it its 
name. This plain is the ancient crater of Tenerife, 
from which the Pico proper soars upwards. It is 
about eight miles in diameter, from 7,000 to 8,000 
feet above the sea, and girdled by the angular rocks 
of the Canadas, striking contortions of superb reds 
and browns, and in places rising nearly 2,000 
feet above the plateau itself. Where we enter the 

17 



242 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



plain by the Portillo, the Canadas' rocks seem to have 
been carried away by a ponderous stream of old lava. 
The gate is, in fact, forced : the toilsome climb 
across the scoriae antecedent to our lunch time was 
over the molten mass which, ages ago, had wrought 
their ruin on the circle of the Canadas. The fourth 
stage of the ascent is the passage of the Montana 
Blanca, a rounded hump at the foot of the Peak, 
and of a pumice material rather whiter than that in 
the plain. The fifth stage includes the first thousand 
feet of the climb of the pyramid — a tedious course, 
amid lava and obsidian in immense blocks, and ter- 
minating at the Estancia de los Ingleses. Here is a 
level space upon which are poised two or three great 
boulders of rock about twenty feet high. It has ac- 
quired so recommendatory a name from the fact that 
our countrymen have been content to try and sleep 
between these stones on their way up to the final 
crater. I do not know when the place was «so 
christened. Early in the eighteenth century it had 
the name. Possibly, therefore, it memorialises the 
halt of the party of scientists who paid the Peak a 
visit in the reign of Charles II. These gentlemen 
obtained special ambassadorial permission to make 
experiments upon Teide. The Spanish envoy at the 
Court of St. James's thought they were joking when 
they declared their purpose of crossing the sea to 
weigh the air on the summit of the Peak of Tenerife. 
He repeated the joke to Charles II. himself, with 
much added laughter of his own, and was then 
rather disturbed to find that the King of England 
chanced to be one of the promoters of the Royal 



HOT AND COLD. 



243 



Society, under whose auspices the expedition was 
being arranged. Accordingly, one may assume 
that these valorous servants of science have given 
us this creditable mark of fame in a distant island 
of Spain. From the Estancia, one ascends another 
thousand feet, over sliding pumice of a vexatious 
kind, to the site called Alta Vista. Here is a 
white wooden house in a sheltered recess. It is a 
solid erection that would soon be provided with a 
refreshment contractor, and two or three beds for 
travellers interested in the sunrise, if the Peak of 
Tenerife were in England. As it is, the house 
belongs to a sulphur company, still engaged in 
exploiting the sulphur of the Peak. Its door is 
kept locked, and only by its window is it possible to 
enter, in acrobatic fashion, among the pickaxes and 
mattocks. It was close to this house, 10,700 feet 
above the sea, that Piazzi Smythe, in his laborious 
surveyal of the characteristics of the Peak, set up 
his tent some years ago, and lived for a while in ex- 
treme cold and extreme heat. Here also, a few years 
later, Dr. Marcet followed Piazzi Smythe's example, 
and wondered with professional wonder how a con- 
stitution merely human could bear the test to which 
it was subjected by a temperature of the sun's rays 
during the daytime of about 212 , and a temperature 
at night of but 35 or 40 , a variation in twenty-four 
hours of 175 ! The ledge of Alta Vista is the sixth 
stage of the ascent. The seventh is a slight semi- 
circuit of the final cone of the Peak, known as the 
Rambleta ; about another thousand feet higher than 
the sulphur house. This is a dreadful pile of obsidian 



244 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



blocks of lava, thrown into confused association by 
a pre-historic eruption. Between the masses there 
are innumerable fissures into which it would be awk- 
ward to slip. And yet, for all this thousand feet of 
vertical rise, the ascent has to be made by a series 
of careful skippings from lava point to obsidian 
edge, and from obsidian edge to lava point. One 
is fortunate to reach the Rambleta with no worse 
wounds than barked shins and frayed hands. At 
the Rambleta, the work seems done. The rosy Peak 
is just above, at the head of a fine straight slope, 
only some five hundred feet high. But this slope is 
at an angle of from 40 to 42 . Moreover, it is little 
else than a cone of fine ash and dust. Humboldt 
has averred that an angle of 42 is the steepest that 
can be climbed over ground covered with volcanic 
ash. We may, therefore, take it for granted that 
this final pull up the cone of the Peak to the 
crater rim, which is the eighth and last stage of the 
climb, is all but impossible. It is certainly an in- 
sufferable flounder. But it may be avoided or 
mitigated by bearing to the left, and scaling a 
lava flow which dives from the actual crater. 

After luncheon amid the lava, we were ready for 
the third stage of our travel — the Retama Plain. In 
the records of those ancient explorers who published 
their narratives in quartos, or among the pages of 
learned periodicals, the trials to be endured from this 
pumice are said to be severe. I expected to be 
blinded by the glare of the sun reflected from it, and 
choked by the dust eddied by the wind and stirred by 
the feet of our horses. No such thing, however. 



THE PLAIN OF THE RETAMA. 



245 



The sun was hot, but was so far from depriving the 
landscape of interest by the torture it inflicted that 
I recall this pale yellow plain, broken with purpled 
pinnacles of molten rocks, and bestrewn with the 
silver-grey retama bushes, as one of the most pic- 
turesque tracts of country in my experience. Here 
and there the retama had been burnt, and the long 
whitened trunks and roots, where they had been 
pulled from the soil, lay along it like the bleached 
bones of an extinct race of mammoths. But 
little imagination was necessary to make us fancy 
ourselves in a section of the Sahara, untrodden by 
man, and invaded by beasts only at the peril of their 
lives. 

Again, according to the old voyagers, who ought 
to have been tough enough, the cold on this plain is 
as acute as the heat of the sun is prodigious. Their 
finger-nails became discoloured, they lost the use of 
their hands, and the skin of their lips roughened to 
such a degree that these bled when they talked. 

Well, I would not discredit such records ; but 
none of these incidents came to relieve the monotony 
of our tramp across the desert. After the Peak, with 
which by this time we were thoroughly at home, 
nothing took our attention like the water-barrel. Of 
course the dust irritated our eyes ; but this was only 
a trivial novelty in the midst of a scene which, with 
its various parts, was wholly novel and absorbing. 
Two or three patches of snow in the sheltered side of 
the Montana Blanca informed us of our slow but 
certain progress upwards. Two or three hawks 
skimming in this clear blue air were the only objects 



246 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



to remind us that we had other living beings in our 
vicinity. The almost inaudible thud of our animals' 
hoofs in the hot sand, their quickened breathing, and 
that of the men, were the only sounds to be heard in 
this still, soundless plain. The clouds, now far be- 
low us, yet fenced the lower world from us like the 
broad brim of a hat. We seemed in another zone of 
life, with a bluer sky and an intenser sun dominant 
over us. 

With occasional brief halts to rest the animals, and 
allow the men to wipe their streaming faces and 
begin a fresh cigarette, we continued thus to the foot 
of the actual pyramid. The view upwards is here in- 
structive and extraordinary. All of the steep slope 
that we can see at one glance is seamed with black 
lava rivers. These are of lengths as various as their 
courses. Some have run down to the plain, and 
mixed with the pumice. For the most part, however, 
they do not overstep the slope. Here they have 
cooled, and here, under ordinary atmospheric in- 
fluences, they ought long ago to have decomposed, 
and formed a soil more or less cultivable. But the 
atmosphere at this altitude is extraordinary, and so 
these rivers are preserved in all their freshness. The 
pumice beneath them is also littered with a number 
of vast red-brown spherical boulders, natural bomb- 
shells spewed from the Peak in the course of centuries, 
and sent rolling down the slopes until they have come 
to rest about 4,000 feet from their starting point. 
Orotava lies north-east of the Peak ; but we have to 
make a detour ere beginning to climb the pyramid. 
So sharp is the rise from the sea to the north and 



BIVOUAC ON THE PEAK. 



247 



north-west that, with a good impetus, a stone might 
bound from the crater mouth, and never cease mov- 
ing until it fell into the sea, several miles distant. 

Our day's work is almost over at this point. It 
is already four o'clock — time we were making our 
beds, building a house, and laying the supper table. 
With this cheerful prospect before us, therefore, we 
worm our way up the shoulder, breasting current 
after current of lava, and grinding the pumice into a 
powder that soon paints us all a bilious ochre colour 
from head to toe. The men do not dissemble their 
groans. Even the water cannot give them much 
satisfaction now ; for the heat and the shaking have 
made it look and taste like a puddle in a clay-pit. 
In fact, we all hail the rocks of the Estancia; and 
even the bits of beer-bottles, the rigid crusts, and the 
relics of tins that once held potted lobster, are wel- 
comed as genial indications that we are, in a measure, 
at home, rather than as nauseating proofs that 
nothing is sacred from the invasion of civilised beings. 
The horses are soon tethered. They know the 
Estancia, and instinctively go to the spot where they 
lingered through a restless night the last time they 
were up the Peak, may be a month ago. As for the 
men, their first impulse is to indulge in dolcc far 
nientc. We have, therefore, to brisken them a 
little, point to the mellow glow creeping over the 
mountains and plains beneath us, as signs of the 
coming night ; mark out our bedrooms, and send our 
chamberlains in quest of retama for our couches, for 
the big fire we propose keeping up through the night 
to warm us, and for the little fire that is the first step 



248 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



towards supper. We take upon ourselves the more 
artistic task of building a wall on the weather side of 
the opening between the rocks, of laying the table- 
cloth, and drawing corks. And when all these agree- 
able preliminaries are ended, there is time to walk to 
and fro in the pumice alongside the Estancia, and 
watch the death of the day. Our thermometer, set 
in a niche of our bed-chamber wall, is at 45 , while 
the sun is yet above the horizon. But the sun's heat 
is by this time quite withdrawn from us, as we are on 
the south-east side of the mountain. Nor do we ex- 
pect a much greater accession of cold than we already 
feel at this bracing height of 9,770 feet above the 
sea. 

The sunset pageant was very odd, and entrancingly 
beautiful. The stratum of cloud which we had 
traversed some six or seven thousand feet lower than 
the Estancia, still hung thick and unmoved below us. 
In fact, it girdled what of the island was visible to 
us, and the sea also to the horizon line. But, seventy 
miles away, the mountains of the island of Grand 
Canary pierced this dull grey corrugated cloud plain, 
and were dyed with rosy light. It was the same with 
the nearer island of Gomera, between Grand Canary 
and the west. As for the reddish rocks over Guimar, 
which we had already noticed earlier in the day, they 
were all of the colour of fresh blood. Again, the 
plateau beneath us and the Canadas cliffs put on the 
tenderest of tints. The pumice grew to a pale prim- 
rose and saffron, and the mountain pinnacles were 
of crimson, and brown, and red, merging into purple. 

But how rapidly the scenes changed ! The shadows 



THE SUNSET SPLENDOUR. 249 



pursued the lights at a measurable speed. The air 
seemed to chill as the intenser colours faded. We 
thought it was all over, and were turning towards 
our camp, when suddenly another great beam of 
crimson light broke upon the land, the clouds, and 
the sea, this time from the western side of our slope. 
In the midst of the sunset splendour there was now 
a triangular shadow, clearly defined, the apex over 
the mountains of Grand Canary. As the sun sank, 
this shadow rose. It rose fast, so that soon it seemed 
to hang in the heavens, isolated, with the blanching 
hues of sunset on all sides of it. A few minutes later, 
and the stars were out. This shadow was the outline 
of the Peak, traced by the sun, and projected scores 
of miles seaward. 

We were reminded of our altitude by a singular 
contrast during this sunset spectacle. About thirty 
miles from the Peak, in the north-east extremity of 
Tenerife, we could see the infantine mountains of 
Anaga, peeping grey and subdued from under the 
clouds, while our upper air was still transfigured with 
sunlight. For them there had long been no sun. It 
was only for such monarchs as Teide that the sun 
continued to shine. 

Of the night bivouac that followed, I cannot speak 
with enthusiasm. We made a roaring fire of retama 
logs, the thick smoke of which periodically drove into 
our faces. The men lay down in a concentric circle, 
wrapped in their blanket cloaks, with their heads to- 
wards the fire. They snored contentedly, and were 
as indifferent to the renewal of the fire as to the ex- 
citement of my horse : the beast had some good blood 



250 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



in him, and neighed and tossed up the dust whenever 
he saw anything he could not account for. How- 
ever, the sparks now and then fell on a soft part of 
their skins, and made them jump up in despite of 
their wishes. 

Although the thermometer went no lower than 42 , 
it was bitter cold. The rarity of the air had some- 
thing to do with this, no doubt. I could not sleep at 
all, and found more pleasure in keeping patrol, tend- 
ing the fire, and watching the ascent toward the 
zenith of the half moon that was to guide us to the 
summit, than in trying to sleep. Moreover, one of 
my comrades had succumbed to the situation. The 
air and the exertion had made him sick. We mixed 
him some grog in a saucepan, using a lump of hard 
snow instead of water ; but even the grog did not do 
everything. He admitted his disinclination to go on 
when the time came; and so there was nothing for it 
but to arrange a division of the party. They would 
not consent to my return, unsatisfied, with them ; it 
was decided, therefore, that Diego should take me to 
the top, and one of the other men should accompany 
them back to Orotava. We were to start simulta- 
neously at about two o'clock. The boy who was 
nominated to guide my friends homewards at first said 
he would do no such thing. He pleaded timidity; 
he wanted more sleep ; he wished to proceed to the 
top, &c. " I will not go," he said, flatly. But a 
bribe made him revert from this lofty strain of obsti- 
nacy, and, at the appointed time, my friends and I 
separated with an interchange of good wishes. 

It was full night when we started upwards in the 



ALTA VISTA. 



251 



teeth of a gentle wind that pinched me like an Arctic 
zephyr. The moon was bright above us ; too small 
to illumine our path completely, but sufficiently lus- 
trous to cast a bewitching glamour over all the scene 
that was visible to us. The clouds lay below, still as 
ever, silvered like mother-o'-pearl. Irregular patches 
of snow, frozen hard, now and again loomed to the right 
and left of us, from the stern, almost palpable black- 
ness of the lava. Had I had any superfluous energy 
to put at the disposal of my imagination, these phan- 
tom forms might have played pretty pranks with my 
head. But of this there was not the least chance. 
The climb was so severe that it monopolised every 
faculty. We slipped and slid on the pumice, stumbled 
over scoriae half in shadow, and sent blocks of obsi- 
dian speeding down to our friends at the Estancia, 
in our attempts to move upwards. It is possible to 
make this stage of the ascent on horseback. Some 
people have the hardihood to accomplish it. But to 
the animals it is a terrible effort, and their riders at 
times have to pay for it by a fall backwards that 
might end disagreeably. 

Humboldt said it took him two hours to reach Alta 
Vista from the Estancia. Diego and I did the work 
in less than an hour and a half, including the time 
spent in a humiliating number of rests. These were 
unavoidable ; so great was the call upon our 
muscles, so persistently did I pant in this high 
atmosphere. But it was sweet encouragement at 
last to see the wooden sides of the sulphur house close 
to us, and to realize that we were now only about 
1,500 feet from the summit. Though doubtful if our 



252 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



friends could hear us, we signalled to them with loud 
whoops, which echoed with weird emphasis from the 
" enormous masses of sublimity," as James Mont- 
gomery might have called the dark shapes in our 
vicinity. 

But a surprise was in store for us. If ever a man 
may assure himself that he is unlikely to meet any 
of his fellow beings, and most unlikely to come 
across an acquaintance, might he not do so on a 
small island in the Atlantic, 11,000 feet above the 
level of that island, and at three o'clock in the 
morning ! One would suppose so. At the moment, 
however, when I had given the word to Diego to 
move forward, the figure of a man appeared from 
below. At first this gentleman did not perceive us, 
though our shouts must have forewarned him of our 
proximity ; and no sooner was he on the smooth 
ground than he thrust his fists into his sides, and 
began to dance a hornpipe under the vague light of 
the moon. But I soon arrested this uncanny ex- 
hibition of vitality by asking him who and what he 
was; and then we found that we were acquaintances. 
He was a Frenchman, the Count de la Moussaye, 
with only a few days' holiday at his disposal ; and 
he had come direct from Orotava, resting not at all 
on the way. Here, at Alta Vista, he purposed 
supping at the fine Parisian hour of three a.m. His 
guide followed him with the supper, and, after a short 
survey of the house, which was only to be entered 
by a heavy wooden window-flap, high up, one after 
the other, we climbed to this vent, and vanished like 
harlequins within. A couple of candles were pro- 



THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 



253 



duced, a bottle of Madeira was uncorked, and the 
temptation to devote an hour to my new friend was 
so irresistible that I suspended work with Diego. 
The two guides forthwith rolled themselves up in 
their blankets, and slept outside until our pleasure 
was over. It was really colder within than without 
the house : we discovered afterwards that a slab of 
ice several inches thick lay between the boards and 
the ground, adapting the building for a refrigerator 
with complete success. 

At four o'clock, we renewed the climb. It was 
that most cold of hours— the hour before the dawn. 
We were gradually narrowing the area of mountain 
shoulder which shielded us from the gusts that now 
whistled about us. And we had for a task the 
clamber over as pitiless a wreck of rocks and molten 
substances as the world can show. The least pres- 
sure of a finger upon the sharp points and edges of 
these scoriae resulted in a scratch or an abrasion. 
Between the masses were crevices and fissures of 
uncertain depth. The snow lay hard as iron in some 
of them. Others were caked with ice, where the 
internal heat of the mountain had melted the snow. 
Over this unpleasant tract we stepped daintily from 
pinnacle to pinnacle, in clear profile against the 
sky. Of little use was my alpenstock here. Rather, 
it became a snare, for the smooth obsidian boulders 
gave it no secure purchase, and more than once it 
earned me a fall that made me groan. After a while 
I turned it to account as a balancing-pole ; and as 
such it was not amiss. Thus, going in a very 
leisurely manner, we attained the Rambleta, or last 
stage but one of our work. 



254 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



This is really another ancient crater of the Peak, from 
out of which, on an awful day or succession of days, 
centuries or even millenniums ago, the sugar cone, or 
Piton of ash and lava, was suddenly ejected, raising 
the height of the volcano by some five or six hundred 
new feet, and carrying the active crater upwards for 
the same distance. The Piton, or actual summit, is 
therefore the representative or survival of two old and 
expunged craters — the Rambleta and the Canadas. 
Just as the Rambleta superseded the Canadas, so 
the Piton has superseded the Rambleta. Before the 
last eruption from the centre of the mountain, the 
Peak of Tenerife was a truncated cone, like so many 
of the South American volcanos. In fact, it is still 
so ; but the area of the terminal crater now bears 
so very small a proportion to the great bulk of the 
mountain, that one almost forgets that it is not 
absolutely pyramidal in shape — an isosceles triangle 
moulded by the hands of nature. 

From the Rambleta we saw the sun rise. It was 
as memorable a show as the sunset of the previous 
evening. The clouds below were at first almost terri- 
fying in their vastness and immobility, but they took 
glow after glow of brilliant hues that soon changed 
their character. Before the sun touched them they 
were like a limitless prairie of opaline billows, 
materialized by superhuman alchemy. But the 
long, crimson line in the east, many minutes before 
the appearance of the sun, coloured them divinely, 
and prepared them for the saturating flood of golden 
light which streamed upon them when the sun did 
appear. The shifting scene of splendour that ensued 



SUNRISE FROM THE PEAK. 



255 



is quite indescribable. At the outset, only the cone 
of the Peak was touched by the dawnlight. The 
lower slopes, the hills, the valleys, and the sea, 
were all in grey shadow when this early flush came 
over us. It seemed to pause for a few moments on 
the dimpled crest of Teide, and then it moved down- 
wards with smooth continuous speed as the sun rose 
high. We were soon absorbed in it. Then the 
mountains of Grand Canary came within its radius ; 
and the island of Gomera, close to the left of us. 
The Canadas next caught the glory, and in one 
rapturous instant the Plain of the Retama was 
spread with cloth of gold. Thus, for long minutes 
of time, we watched the gradual illumination of the 
lower world, until at length we knew that the sun 
had risen for the ships at sea as well as for us, 
12,000 feet above them. The Peak sees the sun 
nearly twelve minutes before it is visible from its 
base. Of course the day is similarly protracted in the 
evening. Hence the Peak's day is about twenty-four 
minutes longer than the common clay in latitude 28 . 

The curious phenomenon of the shadow of Teide 
was now repeated. The enormous pyramidal phantom 
was thrown from east to west. At its origin, it fell 
over Gomera, only fifteen miles from Tenerife, and 
was distinctly of an isosceles shape. But the ad- 
vance of the sun broadened its base and changed its 
direction, so that when, half-an-hour later, we saw 
it from the summit of the mountain, it was a burly 
equilateral, with the apex resting on the rosy tops 
of the Caldera of Palma, an island sixty miles to 
the west of Tenerife. 



2 5 6 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



In the meantime, we had to scale the Piton of ash 
and pumice. The first hundred feet were trying in 
the extreme : so abrupt is the slope, and so insecure 
the foothold. But, afterwards, the going is firmer, 
though very steep. We were here in an atmosphere 
markedly sulphureous. Jets of vapour oozed from 
holes in the rock to the right and left of us, and the 
temperature of the vapour was insupportable to the 
hand. Sulphur in various forms took the place of 
pumice. We sank deep in the soft, adhesive crust, 
which burnt my boots so that they yawned con- 
spicuously. It was really hard to breathe at all, 
what with the asphyxiating smell of the sulphur, 
the extreme rarity of the air, the nipping winds from 
all points, and the labour of the final climb. Dr. 

P of Puerto, had suggested that I should feel 

my pulse on the top of Teide : it was 140 . But 
what did it matter ? We had climbed the Peak, 
and here we were at six o'clock in the morning, with 
the world at our feet, and a blue sky above us that 
put all other blues to shame. 

Certainly nothing could be more expressive than the 
name "Caldera," or cauldron, applied to the crater 
of volcanoes like Teide. It is but one step from the 
outer rim of the cone to the inner sheathing of the 
crater. A rugged wall of fused rock skirts the basin; 
there is an opening in the wall ; one passes through 
this opening; and, immediately, the foot sinks in the 
blanched, burning sulphur, where it slopes to the 
bottom of the crater. The rocks of this outer wall 
are a few feet higher in one part than elsewhere. 
This is the highest point of the Pico de Teide ; and 



VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT, 257 



here, for two or three mortally cold minutes, I perched 
myself, half persuaded that the feeling of vertigo 
which has thrilled several respectable travellers in 
the same position was a sensation not to be doubted. 
This rock point is scarcely a yard in diameter. A 
mountain 12,000 feet high could not culminate in a 
pinnacle much more satisfying to the imagination. 

Had not the impermeable barrier of cloud, nearly 
two miles down, hung between us and the greater part 
of Tenerife, our view from the summit would no doubt 
have been prodigious. Even with the clouds, it is 
not to be forgotten. Of the seven large islands of 
the Canarian archipelago, the mountains of Palma 
and Grand Canary, and the greater part of Gomera, 
were alone visible. It was easier to-day to see the 
coast of Africa than the coast line of Tenerife ; 
but we saw neither. The whole circuit of the 
Canadas was distinct in every detail, and the scarlet 
swellings on the south-west flank of the Peak. 
These are the result of Teide's more recent lateral 
eruptions. Probably none of them are two cen- 
turies old. Their brilliant colouring, and that of 
the forest of vivid yellow pines, diving to the 
cloud-zone, refreshed the eye. But, in the same 
direction, between the Peak and these hills, is one 
conspicuous volcanic boil that, must not escape 
notice. It is the mountain of Chahora, only about 
2,300 feet lower than Tei-de, and with a crater of 
beautiful formation nearly a league in girth. From 
our standpoint, we looked into this crater, and 
could mark the passage of the lava that streamed 
from it in 1798, when it was active for several weeks 

18 



2 5 8 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



in succession. The rugged areas of desolation over 
which it broods tell their own story. But, however 
one might try to be judiciously sympathetic in one's 
survey, it was easier to admire the sombre bronzed 
and jetty colours of this lava, under the unclouded 
sun, than to think of the ruin it indicated. 

The descent into Teide's crater is a matter of no 
difficulty. It is but fifty or sixty feet deep, with a 
diameter of perhaps three hundred feet. True, with 
pressure, my alpenstock went to the handle into the 
soft sulphur ; but there was no danger of my sinking 
to the same extent. The heat was oppressive ; the 
warm fumes stirred by our every displacement of the 
soil were very strong, and the white banks tried the 
eyes. Nevertheless, the crystals of sulphur, of 
many shades between pale yellow and dark orange, 
were quite irresistible, and I had soon given Diego as 
many specimens as he cared to carry. Humboldt 
dwells upon the iniquity of his guides in this par- 
ticular. When his back was turned, they threw away 
the blocks of obsidian and pumice with which he 
burdened them. In praise of Diego, therefore, I 
must say that he did no such thing. But perhaps it 
was rather because he had no vigour for revolt left 
in him. For he was by this time a piteously frozen 
object : the red and blue handkerchief which he had 
tied from his pate to his chin, to put warmth into his 
cheeks, harmonized only too well with their wintry 
hue ; and all the while we were on the summit he 
was enthusiastic but once — in his hearty " Si, senor," 
of assent to my proposition that we should leave it. 

No doubt it will be supposed that when we de- 



WORKERS IN THE CRATER. 259 

parted, these sublime solitudes were left to them- 
selves, to be untroubled by humanity for weeks and 
months. It were natural to think so. But ere we 
left it, the romance of the Peak was totally destroyed 
by the arrival of ten stout countrymen, with mattocks 
on their shoulders. We watched them climbing the 
ash cone, not a little amazed at the sight of them. 
They were merely beginning their day's work, how- 
ever. No sooner had they accosted us with ten 
affable good mornings, than each man plunged into 
the crater, and began to dig up the sulphur. Con- 
ceive a person going nearly two miles and a half sky- 
wards ere he enters upon his daily labour ! As for 
the risks attendant upon such labour, they are as 
nothing compared to the hideous desecration it im- 
plies. There is even a hut in the bottom of the 
crater, for the convenience of the Sulphur Company, 
and these brawny-legged workers of it ! 

In our descent, we visited the famous ice-cavern 
of Teide. It has the appearance of a chamber or big 
bubble in the lava, going far within the bowels of 
the mountain ; but investigation is difficult. Within 
was a pool of lustrous green ice, large enough to 
skate on ; and the huge contorted icicles, uniting the 
pool to the roof of the chamber, were beautiful 
beyond the dreams of a manufacturer of chandeliers. 
Hither in summer come the confectioners of Santa 
Cruz, to fetch ice for the compound of sweet cooling 
drinks. Alas ! how Teide's majesty seems lessened 
when one knows that it serves such various useful 
purposes ! 

Anon, we are once more at the Estancia. The 



26o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



sun is broiling, and we cling to the shadow of the 
rocks of our bedchamber. Breakfast is spread, and 
we have fresh snow to cool our wine. M. le Comte 
protests that he is not tired, and indeed he talks like 
a man refreshed. But, as for me, I am dead beat, so 
that when later we cross the terrible desert of 
pumice, with 120 of heat in the air around us, I 
sleep fast in my saddle. At four o'clock in the after- 
noon, we are again in Orotava, after an absence of 
thirty-six hours. 



N 




\ 



OUTLINE OF CHAHORA, AS SEEN FROM THE SUMMIT OF THE PEAK. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Palma from Tenerife — The weekly correo — The misery of it 
— A fair night at sea— Topography of Palma — Origin of its 
name— Guayanfanta — Conquest of Palma — The brave king 
of the Caldera— Alonso de Lugo's mean shift — Later 
history of Palma— Tenerife named by the people of Palma 
— The Bishop and the convent cake — Independence of 
Palma — The Vandewalle family, past and present. 

The island of Palma is hardly more than a plausible 
myth to the stranger who spends a few days at 
Orotava, and then goes away. He is told, may be, 
that it is about fifty-five miles west of Tenerife ; and 
that if he looks steadily towards the golden glamour 
of the clouds at sundown he may distinguish four or 
five purple paps rising with an air of substantiality 
in the midst of the glory ; and that these paps are 
the mountain tops of Palma. But much deter- 
mination must second him in his attempt to see 
mountains where, to the common eye, clouds only 
are to be seen. 

Once a week, in the evening, a battered, frittered, 
and ineffably dirty little smack of about fifty tons' 
burden sails from Puerto, at a venture, for Palma. 
This barque carries the royal mails and merchandise. 
As an after-thought, passengers also are carried, 



262 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



rather as ballast than as a source of profit. They 
pay a trifle (about 6s.) for the convenience ; and it is 
understood on both sides that nothing whatever will 
be done for their comfort on board the barque. They 
may lie where they can, and must accept the conse- 
quences if they get in the way of the crew, or if a 
storm comes on, and it is found that the ship goes 
heavily, to the imperilment of the mails. 

With only a dim presentiment of the nature of the 
boat, the English chaplain at Orotava (Mr. Goddard) 
and myself agreed to cross to Palma, view the island, 
and return in a few days. Alas ! man proposes, and 
God disposes ! 

To get on board was easy, speaking comparatively. 
True, the day was lowering, and the sea ran high on 
the coast. But the bulwarks of the correo, or 
mail boat, were so low that we had only to wait until 
a wave lifted the shore boat to their level, and then 
leap to the deck. Here we found ourselves among a 
medley of chains, ropes, sacks of potatoes, and boxes, 
some two score swarthy men and boys, and several 
restless cats ; and at every roll of the ship her mis- 
cellaneous live and dead cargo was mixed in a most 
confusing manner. With such favourable conditions 
for sea-sickness, no wonder some of us were ill long 
ere the barque lifted her anchor ; and the gracious 
panorama of olive slopes, dark headlands, and billows 
of cloud, touched by the setting sun, where they 
swayed round the base of the Peak — this was nothing 
to us, in spite of its beauty. 

Then the stars shone forth, and meteors shot by 
hundreds across the bright heavens. There was a 



A NIGHT ON THE CORREO. 



263 



paltry moon ; but this was put to shame by the 
glowing cone of the Peak, which, when we got from 
under the lee of its clouds, shone down upon us, with 
a silver track in the phosphorescent waters, like a 
divine beacon. The coppery crew now left the ship 
to sail unaided, trusting in the land wind. They 
smoked and spat, and sang shrill songs, and lurched 
to and fro in the wake of a big pot over the 
galley fire, and caught the red beams of the fire on 
their faces and their bare skins, and tripped over the 
passengers who lay groaning, prone upon the boards, 
among the chains. It was a diabolical night, not 
without a charm through all its agony. But, even- 
tually, the dawn came to cheers us, and the bold, 
jagged peaks of Palma's higher cordillera — all crim- 
son and clear under the first beams of the sun- 
brooded over us with a kindly affectation of nearness 
while yet we were a dozen miles off. And so we 
landed on this strange shore as we had got on the 
boat, w r ith a timely jump, heedful of the brisk reces- 
sion of the long wave which gave us our oppor- 
tunity. 

Palma is the third of the Canaries in size. It is, 
roughly speaking, twenty-five miles long by fifteen 
broad, with a configuration similar to that of Tenerife. 
Tenerife has for its nucleus the Peak : the barrancos and 
slopes which trend thence to the coast-line are, with 
the exception of the appendix of Anaga, the material 
of the island. And Palma, in like manner, centres 
upon the Caldera, that prodigious old extinct volcano, 
the very measurement of which must be conjectural, 
but with a crater said to be six miles in diameter, 



264 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



and girt by mountains 7,000 feet high. Save the 
tract on the west of Palma known as Los Llanos 
(the Plains), all the island is mountain or plateau ; 
and the barvancos which radiate from the Caldera 
are tremendous ravines, as formidable to the travel- 
ler as the worst of those of Tenerife. Viera com- 
pared Palma to a palm tree. Its gorges stand for 
the fronds of the palm, and the cordillera running 
from the Caldera to the south is the stem of the palm. 
The similitude is ingenious, and may explain the 
name of the island. But, since we once more touch 
the etymological puzzle, it may be remarked that the 
Mallorquinos, cruising in these seas in the fourteenth 
century, reached the island and landed. It is not 
improbable, therefore, that these mariners, with their 
thoughts veering to Palma, the capital of their own 
island of Mallorca, are responsible for the true 
christening of the Canarian Palma. Of course there 
are other conjectures, but we will not concern our- 
selves with them. 

This island has less claim on the historian than any 
of the other six islands of the archipelago. I have 
mentioned the melancholy character of its robust 
aborigines, their singular religious ritual, and their 
stoical manner of leaving the world when life grew 
burdensome. Their women seem to have had the 
nobler souls, as well as muscular bodies. Of their 
strength, the sad story of Guayanfanta may give an 
example. Guayanfanta w r as a beautiful and majestic 
native woman, who aroused the admiration of certain 
marauders from Hierro. These men saw T and pursued 
her. Fearing to fall into their hands, Guayanfanta 



FANCIFUL HISTORY. 



265 



turned, seized the nearest of her assailants, put 
him under her arm, and hurried to a near ravine, 
where she purposed holding him over an abyss until 
she had arranged for her own safety with the others. 
Unfortunately, the poor woman was overtaken ; and 
the ruffians, angry at being so treated by a woman, 
broke both her legs, and left her to die. 

Alonso de Lugo, the conquistador of Tenerife, 
had subjugated Palma before attacking the Guan- 
ches. He landed at Tazacorte, on the west coast 
of the island, on St. Michael's Day, 1-491, and on May 
3, 1493, he achieved what he called " a glorious 
victory " over Tanausu, the King of the Caldera, the 
last monarch of the twelve in Palma to hold out 
against the invaders. As usual, the particulars of 
the conquest vary with the chronicler. According to 
Nunez de la Pena, all the force of Palma mustered 
near the shore, to oppose the nine hundred men whom 
the Spaniard disembarked. The two armies sat 
inactive, each doubtful of the prudence of attacking 
the other. De Lugo, in this extremity, fell on his 
knees, and with fervour invoked the Virgin and his 
own patron saint, Michael, to help him, promising 
Saint Michael that the land should be dedicated to 
him if the Spanish arms were victorious. Simul- 
taneously, a panic seized the natives. " It is better 
to obey than to die," they cried; and thus they all 
accepted the sovereignty of Spain, without striking 
one blow for their independence. Nunez de la Pena's 
version of the conquest may accord with what one 
would expect from a nation of men in subjection to 
their wives, but it is on the whole incredible. 



266 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



The likelier narrative tells us that Alonso had no 
difficulty with eleven of the kings or princes of Palma: 
they dubbed themselves vassals, were baptized, and 
subscribed to the Christian religion as soon as they 
understood the alternative course ; but that he was 
for a time seriously defied by the King of the Caldera. 
Tanausu lived in the vast crater of Palma, a retreat 
easily made impregnable ; and he, with his subjects, 
broke the necks and backs of the Spaniards by 
showering pine trunks and rocks upon them when 
they attempted to enter the defile leading to the 
royal residence. Marking these failures, Alonso tried 
treachery. He invited Tanausu to a conference in 
the plains outside the Caldera, pledging his word 
that no harm should be done to him. The poor bar- 
barian was not rogue enough readily to scent the 
roguery of others. He left his fortress, and this was 
at once possessed by the Spaniards. A captive, he 
bitterly refused the Christianity offered to him by his 
lying foes, who then tried to transport him, uninjured, 
to Spain, to be exhibited at court as a king in chains. 
But Tanausu had the spirit of a Roman patriot. No 
sooner did he understand what his lot was to be, 
than he leaped from the ship into the sea, and was 
drowned. 

This was in 1493. During the intervening four 
hundred years, Palma's history has been of a parochial 
character. The conquest ended, the land was divided 
among the conquerors, and the natives were shipped 
to Cadiz to be sold as merchandise, not the less 
attractive, commercially, for the rude garments of 
skins which they wore in Spain as they had worn in 



P ALMA'S SECLUSION. 



267 



their own hot valleys. Alonso then prepared for war 
with the Guanches. From Palma the Peak of 
Tenerife is a magnificent spectacle, and the con- 
quistador would be encouraged in his plans by the 
constant sight of the mountain, apparently sus- 
pended between the waters and the heavens. 1 
Certain of the new proprietors of the land cared less 
for their estates than for the chance of more war, 
and they therefore left the peopling of Palma to 
deputies. Convents, churches, and monasteries 
sprang up in different parts of the island. Later, 
some noble emigrants from Spain and Flanders 
brought hither a wholesome leaven of good blood. 
Everything, in short, seemed done that was needful 
to incite Palma to become a distinguished addition 
to the Empire. 

But the island has, in fact, lived ever since in a 
state of happy obscurity. It has been spared the 
cares and hazards of greatness or conspicuousness. 
The other islands of the Canaries duly gained laurels 
in self-defence against Drake, Blake, Jennings, Nel- 
son, and other sea captains ; but Palma achieved no 
victories. In 1553, the capital, Santa Cruz de la 
Palma, was sacked by a body of seven hundred 
Frenchmen ; the town's archives and several houses 
fell to the flames. In 1570, again, a community of 
Palma Jesuits, forty in number, were attacked at sea, 
and all murdered by the French. These are the 

1 Tenerife is said to owe its name to the people of Palma, 
who, being able to view it as a whole, had better right to the 
christening than the Guanches themselves : Tenerife—" Tener," 
white snow ; and " Ife," a high mountain. 



268 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



chief sorrows of the island during the last four cen- 
turies. 

Palma was also largely left to itself both by the civil 
and ecclesiastical rulers of the Canarian province. It 
was not quite so oblivious of the passage of time as 
its neighbour, Hierro, the people of which island were 
for long wont to despatch a ship annually to Palma to 
ask when Lent ought to begin. But its distance from 
Tenerife kept the authorities aloof from it. During a 
hundred and seventeen years, it was traversed but twice 
by the bishop of the diocese. On one of these two 
occasions, an event occurred indeed which may have 
frightened subsequent bishops. The nuns of a con- 
vent in the capital, in congratulating their spiritual 
lord on his presence among them, sent him a superb 
cake, home-made, and elaborately decorated with 
sugar and almond excrescences. But, in their ner- 
vousness, the girls seem to have put poison into the 
cake as an ingredient. Luckily, they discovered their 
mistake ere the prelate tasted the cake. As it was, 
the prelate's pages, who had picked at its ornaments, 
were the only sufferers. 

But this very isolation and abandonment, which 
would tend to degrade most communities, has been 
of some service to Palma. The merchants of its 
capital have established a trade, quite their own, 
with Havana and the West Indies. Their ships go 
backwards and forwards, independently of the other 
islands and the peninsula, and thus the foundation 
of a robust individuality has been laid in this small 
island. 

In spite of this mercantile energy, however 



THE VANDEWALLE FAMILY. 269 



Palma is bound by a long series of unfractured 
links to its calm past history. In 1555, a certain 
native of Bruges named Vandewalle, who, with 
his father, a burgomaster of Bruges, and thirteen 
brothers, had fought through various wars in the 
Netherlands, sailed from Cadiz, of which city he 
had been the governor, for this Atlantic island. 
Here the Vandewalles soon acquired fame as civic 
administrators and religious benefactors. This fame 
has gained fresh increment with each century, and 
now, in 1887, it is still, as in 1587, the Vandewalles 
who are looked upon as the prime notables of Palma. 
The family has in the meantime been ennobled. 
I was fortunate enough to have a letter of introduc- 
tion to the Marquis de Guisla, the present head of 
the house, a gentleman who bears his official respon- 
sibilities lightly, though he fulfils them none the less 
effectually therefore. He and the friends who fre- 
quented his house devoted their leisure to stamp- 
collecting. Whenever I paid the Marquis a visit, I 
found his stamp album open on the table, and him- 
self, with his friends, busily engaged in pasting or 
preparing his stamps with the earnest assiduity of a 
schoolboy. Our talk was of duplicates and " pro- 
visionals," rather than of local commerce, politics, and 
the other subjects of current use for casual acquain- 
tances ; and to these gentlemen in the prime of life 
the impending exhibition in Antwerp of collections 
of foreign stamps was a more serious matter than 
the movements of all the European Powers put 
together. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Santa Cruz of Palma — A warm town — The mole — Steep streets 
— Palma women — Don Pedro and his wife — Palma fashions 
— Morning routine — The craterette of Santa Cruz — Archi- 
tecture and industries of Santa Cruz — The Church of San 
Salvador — Altar machinery — Our Lady of the Snows — The 
cockpit — A series of fights — Palma's dependence on Eng- 
land — Local wines and tobacco — Weevils — Locusts — Le- 
gend of the Peak of Tenerife, and the Caldera of Palma. 

Santa Cruz de la Palma, the capital of the Island 
of Palma, is a hot, but markedly picturesque town. 
It is built, in fact, on the extremity of a section of a 
crater, which faces the sea on its southern side, with 
a remarkable brown precipice terminating in the 
water. North, the city is pent by long bare promon- 
tories, falling from the buttresses of the great Cal- 
dera, three and four thousand feet above the sea level. 
South, this crater cliff, a thousand feet high, with a 
broad plateau of rich cultivated country proceeding 
from it in a south-westerly direction inland, shields 
the city from breezes in that quarter. While, lastly, 
tier after tier of high, wooded mountains rise steeply 
behind the city, to form the backbone or cordillera of 
Palma; so that the ascent west, in little more than a 
mile from the main street of Santa Cruz, is between 



A WARM CITY. 



271 



a thousand and fifteen thousand feet. The city gets 
a breeze from the sea, east and south-east. But as 



Aly. 



9 ///9 , \8^ b ' 



fico. GAroi 



fico. rfe J or ado 



, \</ /da 



iimf Tazacorie 
(I 



Tor rente de Lai 
eruption de 1 51 



Caleia de los Pajaros\ )) 



\1A 

si. 

1 



CrtleTa de 7n,hor¥) .* ^ ' 
' j(iW ■ oFuencaliente 



I'll 



******* 



Pta.de Fuencaliente 



o. c/e Sd. Juan 
^Piedad 



..CRUZ DE LA PALMA 
mta.'de Bajamar 



feo'.We Ayiwcncio 
tta.ldel Ganado 



de Tigalate 



Palma : Extreme dimensions 26 miles by 16. 



these quarters are notorious for their heat, the breeze 
is not so refreshing as it might be, 



272 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



Already, in mid- April, we found it very warm here. 
In the shade of the roof of our hotel, the thermometer 
registered 84°, and our bed-room seldom marked 
less than 70 , night and day. Notwithstanding this, 
the people of Palma are curiously loyal in defending 
their climate. They learn that the English have 
made Tenerife a health resort, and they also are 
determined to build a sanatorium or a big hotel on a 
cliff a thousand feet over the city. To question the 
wisdom of this step is to touch a native gentleman 
on his most sensitive part: to point to the thermome- 
ter, and to ridicule the corrco as a means whereby 
delicate people are to get to their haven of rest, is 
to risk a quarrel. Thermometers are not to be 
believed : the correo will be superseded by a fine 
steamer ! If we ask when this will take place, the 
reply is, Paciencia ! 

In the meantime, the city is working hard at its 
mole, in readiness for the visitors who are to come 
to it. Scores of men are employed making huge 
blocks of concrete, thirty to thirty-five tons in weight. 
These are one by one lugged to the end of the mole, 
and foisted into the sea, where they make a rough 
but ponderous foundation for the pier itself. I know 
not how many hundred of the blocks are required, 
but if five in a week are tumbled over the edge, it is 
thought a good week's work. The director of the 
undertaking is a skilled engineer, with a medal from 
the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876, and under his 
green umbrella he defies the sun for the good of his 
country. 

In other respects, there is more energy here than 



THE WOMEN OF PALMA. 



273 



one looks for. The chief streets, O'Daly Street (evi- 
dently of Irish origin), and Santiago Street, are 
flanked with large shops and warehouses of astonish- 
ing importance. They would not be out of place in 
Regent Street ; and yet they and their crowd of gen- 
teel shopmen all have an air of prosperity that it is 
hard to deduce from a population of but ten or twelve 
thousand people. There is not much traffic. The 
streets, save those parallel with the shore, are 
abominably steep. Their cobbles, too, seem made 
for the fracture of limbs. Thus, in all the town there 
seems but one span of oxen, used for the concrete 
blocks already mentioned, and a single shrewd, flat 
mule cart, which the mule drags about with oscilla- 
tions suggestive of the sea. Pack-mules and asses do 
the hard work. Of good horses there is a distinct 
dearth, and when a rich proprietor comes clattering 
into the city, with the tail of his steed distended be- 
hind him, all the shopmen hurry to the doors, and 
the ladies in a hundred houses appear at the windows 
to see the curiosity. 

Methinks the women of Palma in a measure main- 
tain their old supremacy over the men. Some of 
them are tall and stalwart enough for grenadiers, 
but their beauty seems to be rather coarse, and of the 
masculine order. The landlady of our hotel is a fine 
example of a Palma woman. She is large and dark, 
with strong features, and a deep, melodious bass 
voice. Her husband, on the other hand, is small, 
dapper, and hysterical in his movements and man- 
ners. He is, moreover, so completely in thrall to his 
own excitable feminine temperament, that it brings 

19 



274 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



him to serious humiliation ten times a day. He and 
his wife quarrel across the banisters or the patio of 
the building ; but the bass voice always has the best 
of it, and Don Pedro, the small man, goes away 
wiping his moist face with his silk handkerchief, and 
muttering something about women and the weather. 

There is more character in the dress of the Palma 
women than in Tenerife, or rather in the head dress 
only. Some of them wear ridiculously little white 
straw hats, a few inches in diameter, and set, with 
a forward inclination, upon the silk handkerchief 
which first covers their hair. Others, in common 
with some men, adopt the montera, a unique thing. 
This is a cylinder of dark blue cloth, with a head- 
piece attached at right angles. When put on, the 
two open extremities hang one on each side as if for 
ventilation. Neither of these fashions is becoming, 
but then it is probable that these stern women would 
laugh to scorn the notion that they decked them- 
selves to ensnare the affection of such nonentities as 
the men. 

The fashions and physiognomies of Palma are best 
to be seen early in the morning. Soon after dawn, 
the tinkle of goat-bells sounds in the streets, and 
countrymen with calves and vegetables and eggs 
collect on the two sides of a dry river-bed which bi- 
sects the street of Santiago, near the old church and 
the stately post-office of the city. Here the hum of 
gossip and chaffering continues until the sun is high. 
Men of the north of the island, in goats-hair caps, 
with a peak and a tailpiece like a coal-heaver's bonnet, 
in short cotton drawers, and leathern. aprons, meet 



ROUTINE IN PALM A. 



the more ordinary costumes of the rest of the island. 
The congregation by the iron bridge, with the dry 
stones of the river, the flutter of palms higher up 
the bed of the stream, the towering mountains, clear 
of cloud for a few hours after sunrise, the nearer 
architecture : the decorated portico of the parish 
church ; the sumptuous chiselling of the sixteenth 
century post-office ; and the tall houses, with green 
and scarlet balconies — all make a pretty and lively 
picture. 

Indeed, one must live early here. Every sensible 
man, woman, and child gets out of bed when the 
goats give the signal. Then is the time to bathe in 
the Atlantic rollers, from the black volcanic sands of 
the shore, upon which nothing but a tamarisk bush 
or two obtain a footing. One may then see many 
a pretty face taking the air, innocent of the powder 
which later covers its beauties without mercy. The 
citizen and his wife then take their constitutional ; 
and the gay youth who may have lost a year's pocket- 
money at the card table last night, forgets everything 
in dutiful attention to his mother, whom he now 
escorts up and down the sands with amiable in- 
genuousness. For the aged and infirm, there is the 
roof of the house. They take their morning cup of 
chocolate among the geraniums and roses, with an 
unimpeded view of the mountains on one side, and 
the pale blue tranquil sea, with the divine white cone 
of the Peak far away on the other side. So still is 
the air in this brief interregnum, when there is wind 
neither from the land nor the sea, that it is easy to 
talk from a roof in one street to a roof in another. 



276 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



And it is also easy in the clear atmosphere to mark 
Donna Isabella's smiling acknowledgment of the 
various glances of admiration which proceed through 
as many telescopes, cavalierly levelled at her from 
roofs far and near. But all too soon the heat is fit to 
crack the cement of the azoteas; and the ladies who 
were so graceful when seen watering their flowers, 
or pacing the roof arm-in-arm, retire indoors : nor 
do they re-appear until the sun is down. 

The crater, or craterette, seeing that it is only half 
a crater, close to the south of Palma, offers a pretty 
piece of exploration for the morning hours. It seems 
very near indeed ; but it is a long hour's climb to the 
top of it. The bare basaltic and gritty masses, which 
lie from it in sharply-inclined planes towards its base, 
are soon heated ; and while yet Santa Cruz is cool, 
thousands of bronze and purple butterflies and locusts 
are here disporting themselves in congenial tempera- 
ture. The shape is boldly amphitheatrical, with an 
upper edge from twelve to fifteen hundred feet above 
the sea. This is tufted in two or three places with 
palm trees; a white convent crowns the bracing height 
at its loftiest ; and a crucifix looks down from a per- 
pendicular crag at the city and the Atlantic. We 
clambered along its edge, amid clusters of bugloss and 
white iris, conjecturing about the origin of the volcano, 
and the singular offshoot from its summit of the 
inland plateau of Buenavista, with its rich fincas 
and groves of palms. A man proceeding from the 
country to the coast, in ignorance of local geography, 
might well be surprised suddenly to find himself on 
the top of so gigantic a concavity as this. But to- 



LOCAL INDUSTRIES. 



277 



wards the city, the crater gets somewhat isolated : 
a well-defined moat, with abrupt outer sides, marking 
the ancient Piton of the dead and mutilated volcano. 

As we were the only English who had visited 
Palma that year, our acquaintances in Santa Cruz 
civilly made much of us. None of the treasures and 
antiquities of the city were hid from us. There was 
the flag which Alonso de Lugo,in 1492, led through the 
island, at the head of his 900 filibusters ! Its crimson 
silk and silver thread bore the arms of Spain and De 
Lugo on different sides. It is kept in the town hall : 
the stately colonnaded building which is also the 
post-office. The city also boasts a museum, spick 
and span, meagre, but in careful hands. A few 
Guanche skulls, as they are called, may be seen ; 
but the people of Palma were not Guanches, 
and the heads are local heads. The geological 
collection is neat, if not extensive. It is much 
surpassed by the private collection of a friend of 
the Marquis de Guisla's. But the good people of 
Palma were proudest of all to show us their indus- 
tries. There was a silk factory, for instance, which 
we entered through the circular arch of an old con- 
vent ; the bell tower, with its red balconies, looking 
down at us from above. Here the history of a silk 
dress was unfolded, from the green cocoons, purchas- 
able at three shillings per pound, to the soft fabric 
which in the machine-room came forth from the loom, 
crimson and delicate, ready for the milliner. The 
worms were on large trays, from those at a day old, 
of the size of ants, and as lively ; to those at twelve 
days, respectable in size, sobered with age, and full 



278 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



of staid energy for the due fulfilment of the business 
of life. Their surroundings were charming. From 
their trays they might look forth at a cool little 
garden of palm and orange trees, geraniums and 
china roses, all centring upon a marble fountain. 
On the. other hand was the disused refectory of the 
convent, with a rough defaced fresco of Christ on the 
cross at one extremity, and a knot of swarthy men 
stitching the white sails of their ships, seated on the 
steps of the building. The industry is under the 
control of a skilled Frenchman from Lyons, and 
much is expected from it. Aniline dyes are not 
admitted to the laboratory : the local cochineal is, 
with good reason, preferred. 

The parochial church of San Salvador is, within 
and without, one of the most tasteful in the archi- 
pelago. The chiselling of its portico is minute and 
elegant, and the dark woodwork of its interior is 
cleanly carven. Inside, it feels and looks like the 
church of an opulent people, though its pavements 
may be crowded by barelegged peasants bearing every 
mark of poverty. Among its curios is a painting by 
Esquibel, in 1841, of the Transfiguration, at a cost of 
£150. The fine colouring of this picture gladdens the 
eyes after the rubbish that generally fills the Canarian 
churches. But San Salvador is richest in its actual 
bullion and its vestments. We were dazzled by the 
glint and value of the gold and silver of its monstrances 
and chalices, and patens — some antique, and curious 
in shape and design ; by the number of the silver 
candlesticks and silver-cased staves which are part 
of the formulas of the church's processions. There 



CHURCH TREASURES. 



279 



were sets of silver sheathing for the altar ; and some 
careful relievo work on silver book-rests and book- 
covers. As for the vestments, their gorgeousness 
holds the tongue mute. We looked upon embroidered 
copes and chasubles, heavy with gold and silver lace 
woven upon silks and velvets and satins, purple, 
crimson, green, and blue, until we wearied of the 
magnificence. One of these robes, made at Toledo, 
represented in gold and silver upon silk and satin, all 
the native flowers of Palma. They told us a curious 
tale about a certain cope of gold and silver and 
damask, and the broad marble font, thickly decorated 
with figures and landscapes. Both were said to be 
from our Cathedral of St. Paul's, of the time of 
Henry VIII., and presentations to Palma. Else- 
where in the Canaries, one hears the same story. It 
may be, however, that they are wrong about the 
date. For it is possible enough that when Philip II. 
of Spain was also king consort of England, certain of 
our church properties got distributed to aliens. 

Here in San Salvador an uncommon mechanical 
apparatus is used to relieve the officiating priest at 
the altar. At a word of command, the sanctuary 
opens and shuts, contracts or expands, by invisible 
agency. Another signal educes a short flight of 
wooden steps from the body of the altar ; and when 
the priest has used these steps for reaching the Host 
within the sanctuary, they vanish as mysteriously as 
they appear, the breach closes, and no sign of the 
magic remains. Few theatres have their stage 
machinery so well in hand. 

But though the parochial church of San Salvador 



28o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



is the most ornate in the island, it does not hold the 
affections of the people like the lesser building dedi- 
cated to our Lady of the Snows. This stands on a 
green knoll of volcanic tufa at the head of a deep 
barranco near the capital, and with the wooded peaks 
of Palma's cordillera soaring almost from the church 
walls. Since 1646 the islanders have loved this little 
church with an intensity we Northern Protestants 
can but dimly understand. In that year Palma was 
terrified by one of the worst volcanic eruptions in its 
modern history. Four streams of lava were running 
at the same time. All the south-west of the island 
was menaced with destruction. Then, in their dis- 
tress, the people besought our Lady of the Snows, 
and a procession carried her image from the chapel 
in the barranco to the capital. On the following 
morning, snow was seen on the summits of the moun- 
tains, and the eruption had ceased. As this happened 
to be the festival of our Lady of the Snows, and the 
time of summer (August 5), the miracle and the 
mediation were both equally definite. And thus, in 
grateful memory of the past, Santa Cruz continues 
to honour the chapel in the barranco, and every five 
years carries her image into the town, with a pomp 
and thunder of cannons, and general festivities, that 
draw the other islanders hither by hundreds. 

It is in this famous little chapel, moreover, that 
the seamen plying between Havana and Palma still 
make their vows. Its walls are hung with grotesque 
old pictures, signifying the miracles wrought at sea 
by this gracious Virgin. In 1704, for instance, the 
captain of a Canarian barque, in conflict with a 



OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS. 



2S1 



Turkish pirate, invoked the Virgin of the Snows, with 
such success, that during a three hours' fight not one 
Spaniard was killed, but many Turks. Here again 
is another simple story: "The barque of Nicolas 
Marques, having gone from this port for the isle of 
St. Michael, the 25th February, on the 26th day of 
the voyage, in the night, there came on a fierce 
storm, and having in the strife seen a star, they in- 
voked Our Lady of the Snows, and the trouble was 
soon at an end — the year 1702." The ship figures 
as a little boat tossed in the white water, while a star 
like a sun is shining in a blue sky over a bank of 
purpled vanishing cloud. Elsewhere in the church, 
a heap of old sails, and innumerable waxen legs, 
heads, and arms testify, as thank-offerings, to the 
thaumaturgic worth of the shrine. 

With such a reputation, the chapel is likely to be 
rich. Two hundred pounds a year is gathered from its 
alms-boxes alone : no small sum in an island where 
it is hard to exchange money's worth for money. It 
is, indeed, the wealthiest establishment in Palma, 
and the happy priest who has it in charge lives in a 
sequestered house hard by, in a garden of many fruit 
trees, and sheltered from all rude winds by the 
verdant slopes and cliffs of the mountains, cloud- 
capped as to their heads. 

In enumerating the chief buildings of Palma's 
capital, I have omitted one — the cock-pit. This is a 
white octagonal, with a cupola of crimson glass, and 
a gilt vane. From the sea, nothing in the town is 
more conspicuous ; and one is prone to assume that 
it is the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor. 



282 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



During the earlier centuries of the Spanish occu- 
pation, bulls were brought into the island arenas, as 
in Spain still. Subsequently, for some unknown 
reason, the bulls were discarded ; and game-cocks, 
of English extraction, now supply the populace with 
that surfeit of blood and death which seems to be a 
need of the Spanish temperament. Don Pedro, our 
landlord, at first fancied we were drawn to Palma by 
a certain cock-fight in which a famous veteran was 
to take part. He appealed to us, as authorities, on 
several technical points in the frays, and was amazed 
to learn that in England it was illegal to practise the 
sport which he conceived to be one of the most 
brilliant features of English life. 

The series of duels I witnessed in this white arena 
one Sunday morning differed but little from the duels 
that take place daily in every lusty farmyard, save 
that they were to the death. Five or six hundred 
townspeople crowded the building, the brown legs of 
the boys hanging down from the gallery towards the 
more aristocratic vicinity of the cockpit. Not Epsom 
paddock five minutes before the Derby start ever 
presented such a scene of tumult as this small place 
when the birds were rubbed beak to beak as a pre- 
liminary to each main. The lads roared their wagers 
in cents ; the richer citizens and the nobility offered 
dollars and tens of dollars. A marquis, with his own 
hands, untied the blue or crimson ribbons which 
attached the sheath to the maiden spurs of the birds. 
Another estimable gentleman held the scales while 
the combatants were weighed, and plucked feathers 
from the tailpieces, where this was necessary to 



COCKFIGHTING. 



283 



equalize their bulk. Then the poor proud pugilists 
were set at each other, amid a yell of encouraging 
shouts, which dazed the novices and made them an 
easy prey to the older birds, who had already tasted 
blood, and been often caressed by their happy owners. 

What mean pitiful pastime this cock-fighting is ! 
Only the more brutalized of the birds have their heart 
in it, beyond a certain point. When one stately 
warrior, having lost an eye. and got half choked with 
its own gore, lowers its head, quails, groans, and 
flies in pain and terror before its antagonist, the 
latter, left to its own instincts, is disposed to throw 
down the sword, and sign a truce. At least, I hope 
the common barnyard bantam, undebauched by 
human applause, has so much of chivalry in its 
nature. But here such conduct was unacceptable. 
The bedraggled, bleeding victim had to be pursued, 
overtaken, wounded again and again, bereft of its 
other eye, stabbed in the throat, and worried slowly 
into insensibility. Even this did not suffice. When 
at length the poor creature had rolled on to its back, 
and lay with its feet in the air, laboriously sobbing in 
its death agony, the conqueror must needs perch on 
the dying body, peck it finally and completely to 
death, and hoarsely crow forth its conceit. 

Only one of the five mains on the programme 
gave me any pleasure. The birds in this case were 
superb fellows. They carried their heads high, 
swaggered like Alsatians, shook their gay plumage, 
and were no sooner introduced than they crowed in 
each other's faces with a loud bluster of challenge 
that brought roars of applause upon them. A rare 



28 4 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



tussle ! prophesied every one, from the marquis 
downwards. In fact, however, when the warriors 
were released from their owners' warm hands, and 
set on their own legs, they viewed their responsi- 
bilities in another light. Instead of leaping straight 
at each other's throats, each went smartly to the 
right about face, and began to run round the arena 
in flight. When, in their scamper, they met, simul- 
taneously they turned again, and continued their 
flight. Their running was beyond praise : they had 
such long, strong legs ! But fight they would not, 
for all the maledictions of their backers, or the in- 
sidious cajolements of their masters. So that, after 
a while, all Santa Cruz joined in a shout of con- 
tumel}", and the cocks that were willing to race but 
not to fight were caught by the tails, and thrown out 
of the ring, as cravens unworthy of further notice. 
Don Pedro, among others, went red in the face over 
this humiliating scene. Nor would he believe that I 
did not mock him and the national pastime when I 
vowed it was the best fight of all, and the only one 
fit to be seen by a man of humane impulses and 
sensibility. 

Don Pedro vaunted the English origin of the game- 
cocks of the town. He also flouted in the faces of 
his Spanish guests at the dinner-table that his 
cutlery, rum, plates, tumblers, and much of the 
tinned meats he gave us hailed equally from 
England. Moreover, every little vent a in Palma, as in 
Tenerife, has its row of beer bottles from Burton or 
Edinburgh. But this anomalous dependence upon 
our island was complete when we came to be offered 



WINE AND TOBACCO. 



285 



English cigars in a country that has close and con- 
stant intercourse with Havana. Palma herself, 
indeed, grows fair tobacco. It is the one absorbing 
desire of certain of her planters to get their produce 
tried in London. Yet I do not think they would 
profit by the fulfilment of their wish in this respect. 
Their prices are certainly cheap • but strong cigars 
with an aroma that brings tears into the eyes are 
dear even at but three to four shillings per hundred. 
We tested several growths of local excellence, and 
dissatisfaction generally ensued. 

It is the same with the wines of the country. 
There are as many different qualities as parishes. 
In one village we were discomfited by a juice as sweet 
as the wine of Samos ; in the next by a strong liquor 
that stopped the breath; and in the next by a wine 
that even the famous " resinata " of Greece can- 
not match for nastiness. Perhaps improved pro- 
cesses will change both wine and tobacco for the 
better. 

It is much to the credit of Palma that it rears no 
noxious animals. To be sure, fleas abound wherever 
there are human beings, the lower classes are in- 
fested with lice, and in summer there is no lack of 
mosquitoes. Moreover, the prickly pear and eu- 
phorbia bushes which mass the rocky slopes are 
linked together by the tough intricate webbing of 
large spotted brown or black spiders. But these 
feeble vermin are of small account. 

The island is reputed to contain an indigenous bat, 
but naturalists are not, I believe, quite sure about 
this. Thanks to the abundant pasture of the eu- 



286 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



phorbia, there is also an extraordinary number of 
weevils here. We found them now and then in the 
very hard bread of the hotel ; but as Don Pedro only 
laughed pleasantly while taking them between his 
finger and thumb, and the other guests were not 
aghast, the weevil in Palma is no doubt a dainty 
feeder, and by his presence stamps the food he 
favours with the hallmark of quality. 

But the locust claims mention, if only for the 
suggestion of doom that accompanies him as he hops, 
chirping, in the sunlight. About once in a century, 
these insects come in desolating hordes. In 1812, 
for instance, they lay in parts of Fuerteventura to a 
depth of four feet. Then the Canarians take prompt 
measures. The military are ordered out to dig 
trenches all over the land ; to shovel the locusts into 
these pits, and cover them up for their extinction. 
But such trivial opposition seldom saves the islands 
from total ravagement for the year. If, by burning 
and burying the bodies, they may avert the pesti- 
lence that is apt to ensue upon a dearth of food, and 
the stench of the decaying layers of insects upon the 
sea shore, this is as much as can be expected. 
Happily for Palma, however, it is somewhat pro- 
tected from this scourge by the intermediate islands 
of Grand Canary and Tenerife. 

Indeed, the shadow of Tenerife is, and always has 
been, a potent factor in the routine of life in Palma. 
According to a legend, the Caldera of the one island 
and the Peak of the other are as closely related as a 
sword to its scabbard. For, long ago, it is said, a 
diabolical storm raged in Palma, and, in the course 



THE PEAK FROM PALMA. 



287 



of it, a mass of rock five thousand feet deep was torn 
from the mountains, and whisked over the waters to 
Tenerife. Here it righted itself upon some high ground; 
and it is now known as the Peak. The fable gives an 
idea of the stupendous hole of the Caldera. To the 
people of Palma, the Peak acts in some sort as a 
weather guide. Like the ancients, who supposed that 
it linked the heavens to the earth, perhaps they are 
wont to think of it with an exaggerated respect. To 
climb it was to be heroic indeed, in their esteem. 
In fact, from Palma it has a look of profound majesty 
— whether at dawn or sunset, with a lingering ruddy 
light upon its cone ; or at noon, when the clouds lie 
thick along its flanks, and only its head caresses the 
blue. But, day by day, during our sojourn in Palma, 
the hot April sun melted the snow from " inimitable 
Teide," as Viana calls it, so that when, after long 
delay, we once more went aboard the detested 
schooner, the mountain was changed from white 
to black, with only a delicate pencilling where the 
snow still lay in the ravines of inky lava down its 
sides. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Preparations for a tour round Palma — Barranco de Galga — A 
red land— San Andres — Los Sauces— Its merry mill — 
Barrancos de Herradura, Gallegos, and Peleos — Awful 
roads — A beautiful country — We lose our way — The timid 
shepherd boys — A fairy fog — The kindly proprietress and 
her hospitality — Tricias — Its elevation — Primitive quarters 
— A mill by cow-power— More barrancas— Bad water — 
Candelaria — Its ancient church — A gracious noonday rest 
— On the Caldera edge — Indescribable panorama — The 
Caldera — Its colours and immensity — The Pico de Bejanao 
— Volcanoes and lava flows. 

We stewed for a week in the town of Santa Cruz 
of Palma, getting daily more limp and indisposed 
for exertion of any kind. Then, with an effort, we 
decided to throw off the inertia that gained so fast 
upon us, by a methodical tour in and round the 
island. Forgetting where we were, we proposed 
at first to walk; but Don Pedro's impertinent laughter 
at such a notion changed our pedestrian into an 
equestrian tour. During two days we discussed 
the essential preparations ; studied maps with the 
Marquis de Guisla, cross-examined men with horses, 
asses, or mules to let ; and wondered whether the 
country fleas and smells could rival those of our 
town hotel. Don Pedro confessed to the smells, and 



PALMA BARRANCOS. 



289 



to relieve us he periodically burnt certain herbs and 
messes in our room, which exhaled a brief fragrance, 
but were no match for their antagonists. But he 
said the fleas were trivial, and that we should meet 
with more in the villages than we had an idea of. 

A mule and a lean white mare were therefore 
brought to the portico one bright morning late in 
April ; and, having provisioned ourselves with eggs 
and bread, cheese and wine, we clattered away to 
the north for the first of the many barrancos we were 
to cross in the next four days. I need not again 
describe the glorious outlook from the capital on a 
sunny morning. The scene seldom varied. The 
Peak over the blue water was but more or less dis- 
tinct; the wooded escarpments behind the town were 
always green against the pale blue sky, that seemed 
already veiled by a foreboding of the thick clouds 
which in an hour or two were sure to blow up round 
the mountain peaks, and slowly descend until they 
hung about two thousand feet from the sea level. 
Such were the routine scenic effects of Santa Cruz 
soon after dawn. 

Our day's march was not destined to be extensive 
in direct mileage. We were to sleep at Los Sauces, 
fifteen miles distant. But direct distance in these 
islands gives no idea of the actual toil. We crossed 
nine barrancos of size on the way — one, the 
barranco de Galga, about eight miles from Santa 
Cruz, being really a compound or involution of 
barrancos : the main rift broken into pinnacles and 
ridges which had to be passed independently. The 
magnitude of this typical cleft may perhaps be better 

20 



2go 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



understood when I say that it proceeds from the 
summits of some of the highest of Palma's mountains, 
where they are not more than seven or eight miles from 
the sea. Before beginning our descent into the 
barranco de Galga, we stood on its turfy edge in 
the zone of heaths, and almost on the fringe of the 
pines; but we descended to the Atlantic level, and in 
the hot contracted channels sweated amid new 
surroundings of darting lizards, prickly pear, and 
euphorbia. 

The road throughout our tour was on the whole 
bad. In places, it was indescribably bad. This is in 
part due to the hard lava surface, and in part to the 
neglect of the authorities, who spend thousands 
of pounds on two or three miles of first-class 
road on the skirts of the capital, but are reckless 
of the maintenance, still less improvement, of the 
remote tracks which are locally known as high- 
roads. For use on the high roads between one village 
and another, the peasant always carries his lanza, 
a long wooden pole, spiked at the end ; and, indeed, 
he needs it. 

We breakfasted at a miserable little wine-shop set 
on a nude hill slope. Here they used stones for 
weights, in sellingthe men their gqfio. I ought to 
say that in Palma a man has to be hired with his 
beast. We therefore had two guides, because two 
animals. The men ate figs, sugar with their gqfio, 
biscuits, and any small indiscriminate luxury among 
the wine-shop store which chanced to please them. 
They hoped we would pay for it all. We did so on this 
occasion, but not until we had made them blanch 



A FRUITFUL HEN. 



291 



through their brownness by assuring the wine-shop 
keeper that their indulgences were their own affair. 

Then, for three melting hours, we climbed and 
descended among some picturesque red hills, with a 
soil good for lupins, but otherwise uninteresting. 
We got up to the chestnuts, then fell quickly to aloes 
and palms. Shade there was none, and the men a-foot 
streamed with moisture. Even the animals lagged, 
and had to be baited forward with bunches of young 
barley, unceremoniously plucked from the adjacent 
fields. The lizards ran about underneath us by 
scores. Once my mule bit at a fine thistle, and 
almost swallowed the large bee that was upon it. 
This sensation made the poor fellow go smartly for 
several minutes. 

At noon we halted by the village of S. Juan, 
which does not appear on Berthelot's map. The 
fountain here was notable for its abundance, and the 
beautiful drapery of red geraniums, nasturtiums, 
cacti, and a red-berried shrub which hung down from 
the wall of rock above it. We ate by it, in the cool 
of its waters, with the villagers looking down upon 
us. The dress of the people was simple, home- 
spun being the basis of the women's clothes, while 
the men wore as little of anything as they could. 
Some prolific orange trees near tempted us to try 
and negotiate a purchase ; but when the proprietor 
heard of our needs, he generously sent us pro- 
vision as a present. One curiosity of S. Juan must 
not be forgotten. On our way out of the village, we 
saw an old lady holding a hen by a string tied to its 
leg. This hen was attended by thirty-six chickens, 



292 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



all her own ; and she still had energy enough left in 
her to struggle mightily with the string that kept her 
aloof from her children. 

At five o'clock we entered the village of San Andres, 
between Los Sauces and the coast. This place, with 
its ancient church, was founded in 1614 by Captain 
Don Juan de Guisla Vandewalle, an ancestor of the 
Marquis de Guisla. The church stands in its dis- 
hevelled little Plaza. It is remarkable for nothing 
except its melodramatic paintings, its altar, dated 
1694, and an antique wooden ceiling. The sacristan 
showed us everything, even to the cura's mildewed 
boots and socks, which he kept in the vestry, along- 
side the holy vessels. 

San Andres and Los Sauces are now a single town, 
of which the former is the lower part. The district 
is famous for its waters, its fertility, and its sweet 
bracing air. If Palma must have a sanatorium, it 
may be built at Los Sauces, the upper part of which 
is over a thousand feet above the sea. Sundry large 
handsome houses, and fincas, with gardens attached, 
give a degree of splendour to the outskirts of the 
town, which is belied by its rough bare interior. One 
extensive old monastic establishment, as solid as a 
citadel, has a superb perch; and the Plaza boasts an 
Italian garden of palms, orange trees, and a multi- 
tude of shrubs and flowers interspersed with statuary. 
But this garden has for long known no gardener, and 
its graces struggle with and strangle each other. 

There is no inn at Los Sauces, but we carried a 
letter to a certain proprietor, who made us comfort- 
able. I know not how many local tatterdemalions 



LOS SA UCES. 



293 



followed its, in wonder, to this gentleman's door ; 
and while we stayed with him we had no privacy : the 
Alcalde, or this or that friend of our host, or the 
muleteers came to see us eat, and strolled about in 
the drawing-room which had been turned into our 
bedchamber, quite careless of the chairs which, in the 
latter case, had to be pushed from the door ere we 
allowed our cage to be forced. Our host, good man, 
could not understand how we longed for rest after 
our fatigue in the sun. Before dinner, he led us 
a-foot nearly two miles into the mountains, that we 
might see ere sunset the best thing in Los Sauces. 
This treasure was only a watermill ; but so strong a 
stream straight from the Caldera, is, to a native, worth 
seeing. The mill was merrily grinding gofio for 
the housewives, who no sooner got their measures 
than they hurried home to eat it ere the aroma fled. 
Potatoes and barley were abundant in the Los Sauces 
district ; but our host bewailed the scarcity of money. 
Everyone had enough to eat ; this he acknowledged : 
but, since the decay of the cochineal industry, save a 
little wine to Cuba and England, there was no lucra- 
tive export left to them. 

Punctually at five o'clock the next morning, our 
chief muleteer awoke us. From pur windows the 
Caldera summits, only four or five miles distant, 
were then a clear crimson. But we had a very long 
day's work before us, and could give no time to the 
exclusive enjoyment of natural beauties. Everyone, 
except ourselves, said it was preposterous to think of 
trying to reach Garafia between sunrise and sunset. 
Trusting to our maps, however, we said it must be 



294 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



done ; and then, with shrugs of the shoulder, Ave 
Marias ! and Carambas ! the Alcade agreed with our 
host that the thing was certainly possible, though 
difficult. 

Thus, half an hour after dawn, we plunged into the 
first of the twelve bavrancos which were to give in- 
dividuality to the day — the barranco de Herradura 
(Horse-shoe), a yawning abyss that began almost at 
the door of our friend's house. On the other side of 
it, we trotted cheerfully through many acres of rich 
arable land, grain, jewelled with red and yellow 
poppies, and fields of lupins. We then rose to a 
plateau of crimsoned soil, equally fertile, past the 
village of Barlovento, studded with eccentric wind- 
mills, and famous in Palma for the lighthouse which 
guards this, its north-eastern extremity. We 
ascended until we were among the heaths, with the 
pines of the mountains, cloud-swept by this time, 
close to us on the left. Then, as the northern coun- 
try of the island appeared below us in broad slopes to- 
wards a rocky surf-beaten shore, we were able to guess 
at the obstacles before us. Barranco after barranco 
to the horizon ! From the edge of these superb gullies, 
we looked down precipitous sides eight hundred and 
a thousand feet deep, and. wondered how they were 
to be passed. In fact, the paths were not free from 
danger. They were cut in sharp zigzags down the face 
of the brown cliffs, and, where it seemed easier to do so, 
pine trunks had been bored into the rock, set parallel 
to each other, loosely covered with furze and dirt, 
thus composing a hanging road, three or four feet 
wide, to fall through or over which were a method of 



BREAKFAST IN A RA VINE. 



295 



ctying as certain as it were simple ! Even the mule 
did not think highly of such engineering. He had 
to be lugged carefully by the man ahead, and pushed 
and coaxed behind. The trunks of the road were in 
places rotten, and once the animal put his foot through 
the track. 

But though so laborious, these barrancos (and 
especially the barrancos de Gallegos and Peleos) 
were so grand that they stilled our groaning. In 
their upper parts, the woods were thick ; we could see 
and hear thin cascades falling into their deep beds 
through brakes of creepers : and, now and again, the 
clouds which hurtled about their heads lifted to show 
us huge peaks and pinnacles, startlingly near, with 
blotches and heaps of snow in the crannies of their 
sides. 

Our two places of bivouac this day were both, 
though differently, engaging. We breakfasted on some 
greensward by the blue stones of a barranco bed, 
with walls of rock hung with brambly withes of 
great length up the ravine, and a contracting outlet 
seawards. About eight hundred feet above us was a 
little black house, the last we should see for hours, 
said the men. Hither, after breakfast, we toiled, to 
buy raw eggs at two for three halfpence, and eat 
curds and whey, with a few grains of sugar, carefully 
weighed by the housewife like a precious drug. This 
was at 9 a.m. At 2 p.m. we thought we were justi- 
fied in again calling a halt. What lovely country 
we had traversed in the meantime ! Wholly un- 
cultivated, if not wholly uncultivable ! From ridges 
of turf set with asphodels and Canarian buttercups, 



296 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



we had climbed to pinnacles of rock crowned by 
gigantic pine trees, with trunks a yard in diameter, 
straight and unbranched for eighty to a hundred feet. 
Now we were winding through a thicket of laurels and 
gum-cistus, and now treading softly on a carpet of 
pine-droppings, with an interminable vista of tree 
trunks on both sides of us, and in an air as balmy as 
it was bracing. Thus we got to a small glen, arched 
by intermingled laurels and pines, and full of the 
song of blackbirds. Here was a spring, and by the 
side of the water we gave ourselves half an hour's 
rest in the cool shade. 

For seven or eight hours we moved briskly forward 
through this broken upland country. Then, when 
the light began to mellow across the bright tops of 
the pines, the men admitted that they had lost their 
way. It was no wonder, but somewhat annoying. 
They shouted, one after the other, as we went 
dubiously along, up hills and down hills, hoping some 
stray shepherd might hear us. In this we were for- 
tunate ; for after a time we heard the tinkling of 
goatbells, and on a grassy pine-topped conical hill, 
we- saw the horned flock and a couple of boys in long- 
white cloaks. The boys were so frightened that 
they said " Yes, sir," to our every inquiry. Only 
when we had left them, did the bolder of them 
volunteer in stentorian voice some sort of advice. 

This direction led us up into the mountains again. 
On our way we stepped into a local fog, dry and in- 
nocuous, through which the sun partly pierced, so 
as to play strange tricks of beauty with our sur- 
roundings. The gold of the lateral branches of the 



A FRIEND IN NEED. 



297 



pines was tipped with purple, the rocks flushed 
crimson, and the house-leeks, which here covered 
them thickly, were like so many amethysts in a 
gorgeous setting. The very moss under our feet 
was dyed prismatically, and thus, for a few brief 
minutes, we and everything suffered a transfiguration 
as romantic as it was exquisite. 

But help came to us through this fairy glamour, 
in the form of a rich lady, travelling home from a 
distant town, in company with her maid. She was 
a tall graceful woman about thirty, and wore her 
black glossy hair in two thick tails which reached to 
her hips. What objects of interest we were to her! 
And how she invoked the Virgin when she heard the 
tale of our day's proceedings ! We had wandered 
miles from the right track, and, instead of being on 
the skirts of Garafia, we were within half an hour 
of Tricias, a village much farther towards the west 
of the island. To Tricias, therefore, we turned, glad 
if the light would hold until we were within view of 
its houses. Our lady friend, however, would not let 
us part with her so abruptly. We were to pause in 
the woods, while she and her maid sped to her house 
behind an acclivity ; and then accept what she sent 
us. This came duly : a decanter of wine, plates and 
napkins, figs, walnuts, and almonds ; and while we 
ate and drank, the two kindly souls stood on the hill- 
top, and waved their handkerchiefs. The transition 
from despair to mental tranquillity, and such sensual 
enjoyment as nuts and wine, was too much for our 
guides. They emptied the decanter, and, after inciting 
the animals into a mad-cap gallop, brought us among 



298 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



the red roofs and squab-shaped cottages of Tricias 
with disgraceful hullabaloo. We had covered about 
twenty-four miles of country, equal in its configura- 
tion to at least forty-five of but common irregularity. 

Tricias is only a small village between the more 
important townlets of Garafia and Puntagorda. It 
stands high, at least 3,000 feet above the sea, and 
overlooks the broken plain of Puntagorda, with a 
forest of magnificent pines in the south-west, and 
one bold volcanic hill by the coast, over Puntagorda 
town. While the men reconnoitred for a lodging, the 
last glory of the sunset seemed to burn this volcano 
top : its indented crest glowed like fire, while the sea 
beyond, and the lower country, was a pale saffron. 
But a rush of cold clouds from the Pico de los 
Muchachos made us shiver in spite of this warm 
panorama. Tricias is the nearest place in Palma to 
this Pico, 7,234 feet high, and the chief mountain 
of the Caldera. On this, its western side, it falls to 
the coast in graduated ridges, pinnacles of varie- 
gated volcanic rocks, and slopes of shaly debris 
clumped with pines. It ought to be scalable either 
from Garafia or Tricias. But, save for the view down 
its precipices into the Caldera, it has little pre- 
eminence over the other edges and needles which 
form the rim of Palma's supreme natural curiosity. 

We had rough but hospitable quarters in Tricias. 
The miller of the place received us into his 
house ; and a small adjacent building, of untrimmed 
stones inside and out, provided us with a bedroom. 
Two trestle beds in this airy chamber gave us the 
content of kings, and, having guided the trembling 



A COLD " SNAP." 



299 



hands of our nervous hostess in the preparation of 
supper, we ate it among the boxes, linen chests, 
sheepskins, knives, axes, and miscellaneous odds 
and ends of the family living-room. Splints of pitch 
pine were stuck in the kitchen walls for lights, and 
the only water obtainable was brown and stag- 
nant, from a big elaborate tank outside. Notwith- 
standing the fleas, a thermometer at 42 , a room 
stifling with smoke from the kitchen fire, and the 
wails of our host's baby, we slept soundly in Tricias. 

Before starting at 5.30 the next morning, we were 
taken to see the mill of Tricias, worked by a couple 
of cows. It did not interest me hugely ; but our 
guide's enthusiasm was extreme. With him the 
mill was always the measure of the village, and his 
first question to a peasant in an outlying part of the 
country was about the nearest mill and its charac- 
teristics. 

We left Tricias in a driving fog, cold and wet. 
All the household were coughing or clearing their 
throats, while the land three miles below us was 
bright and verdant under a southern sun. " There 
is some phthisis up here," said our host ; " but down 
there, oh, no." Very soon, however, we in the up- 
lands had also as much sun as we wanted, and the 
vineyards in the purpled loam, the fields of poppies 
and barley, and the pines and heaths round about us 
put on their full beauty. 

This clay's journey along the western side of 
Palma was monotonous compared to its predecessor. 
The barrancos were less formidable than those to 
the north ; the pines disappeared ; and, as we got 



3oo 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



nearer to the mouth of the Caldera, the soil thinned, 
and we found ourselves gradually ascending obliquely 
to the summit of a long broad back of a mountain 
which fell smoothly below us to the sea. But 
among the dozen barvancos which we traversed, two 
or three deserve notice. In the bavranco de Garome, 
near Puntagorda, there is a precipitous volcanic 
rock, the natural cells of which have been appro- 
priated as residences and storehouses. How these 
various flats were to be attained by their occupiers 
we could but surmise ; for the doors let immediately 
upon a serious abyss. The bavranco de Tinizara, the 
next of importance, boasts of a spring; its waters 
trickle down a rock clad with ferns, lichens, and 
bramble ; but the supply is not abundant, and it is 
soon absorbed by the dry thirsty land below it. This 
was in fact the only fountain we passed in fifteen miles. 
Tanks are essential appurtenances to a dwelling be- 
tween Tricias and Time on the Caldera ; but the 
tank water is often fetid. The bavranco de la Cueva 
gets its name from a spacious cave in its upper part. 
The cave is utilised as a house, with a stout wooden 
door, and geranium bushes at its postern. The 
bavvanco de Jorado is bridged by some serrated 
rocks ; the arch below is devoted to a crucifix, and 
by the crucifix is an old shrine, now inhabited by 
commonplace mortals, who climb to their eyrie by a 
ladder. From the blue and brown stones of this 
bavvanco bed, the cross and the shrine in this 
natural tunnel, prominent against the farther sky, 
strike the fancy. 

About halfway between. Tricias and Los Llanos, 



CANDELARIA. 



301 



our destination, we reached the townlet of Cande- 
laria, a place of disappointment. We had postponed 
breakfast four hours that we might eat it here. But 
all the town clubbed together could with difficulty, 
and after a weary hour of tarrying, give us nothing 
but a bowl of eggs, some bread, and insufferable 
wine. The sacristan of the church, the mayor, and 
a knot of others made a pother about us that was 
brutally vexing in our hungry and heated state : and 
uncertain whether we were to fast or be fed, we 
moved backwards and forwards between the church 
and a dull room that had been offered us. Luckily, 
we had nuts and figs in our saddle bags ; for the men 
had not scrupled to take and store all the fruit 
the good Samaritan lady had sent to us the evening 
before in the forest. 

The church of Candelaria is reputed the oldest in 
the island, after S. Andres. It was certainly built 
for a larger congregation than the dismal little town 
which now surrounds it can muster for its broken 
pavements and rickety chairs. The reredos, too, 
has not its equal in Palma for ornateness. The 
Apostles are set in niches upon it, bearing marks of 
their identity. St. Peter of course carries his keys ; 
St. Simon, a long iron saw, in memory of his mar- 
tyrdom, &c. Above these images are paintings, 
coarse indeed, but suggestive, But the cruellest 
picture of all is a great black representation of a 
window, daubed on the northern chancel wall, to 
match a real window on the opposite wall. The ex- 
terior of the northern porch of this uncouth old 
church is decorated in fresco with a beamed sun ; 



3° 2 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



and the artist has given the planet nose, eyes, and 
a mouth. The west porch is similarly frescoed 
with a rude tower. It was not to be expected that 
the sacristan could explain these insignia. They 
had been there a long time, he said ; and that threw 
the burden of explanation upon his ancestors. 

Candelaria's population is 2,308. I am glad to 
state it exactly, out of gratitude to the Mayor, who, 
after a long consultation with his fellow-citizens, 
and some sort of an impromptu census, thus gave us 
the figures. The district claims to be very poor ; 
but our friends, lay and ecclesiastical, were able to 
bring twenty-five eggs, hard-boiled, to satisfy the 
appetite of a couple of men. A sixpence " for the 
good of the Church " almost brought tears of grati- 
tude into the eyes of the burly sacristan who 
accepted it. Though hens were plentiful, minted 
money was no doubt very scarce in Candelaria. 

Hence we rode over some grilling rocks in the 
heat of the day, with a fellow-traveller. He was a 
landed proprietor in the district, and civilly went out 
of his way to take us for an hour's rest to one of his 
farms. The tenant was a cobbler, who was anxious 
to mend our boots when he saw the sorry plight to 
which they were reduced. He admired the magnifi- 
cence of the ruins, as you or I might admire the 
Parthenon. But though the rest was grateful to us, 
we did not stay long among the leather of our friend's 
tenant's workshop. " Allow me to catch a flea for 
you ! " said our entertainer, in the midst of conversa- 
tion. His quick eyes detected the insect on my 
coat. It needed no inordinate amount of sensibility 



APPROACH TO THE C ALDER A. 



303 



to realize that many others were about us, though 
invisible. 

An ascent of another hour's duration brought us 
at last in sight of the great goal for all travellers 
in this small Atlantic island. The smooth greyish 
slope, the summit of which had for long been our 
horizon, suddenly ended. We stood upon the 
crest of the ridge. Below us was the bavranco de 
las Augustias, which puts all other bavrancos to the 
blush. To the left, through a clear purple light, was 
the wonderful Caldera. Beyond the bavranco the 
laughing country of Los Llanos sloped to the sea, 
in a profusion of greenery. And beyond this fertile 
village-dotted plateau was Palma's cordillcva, or 
mountain backbone, detaching towards the south of 
the island into isolated volcanic peaks of brilliant 
colours and exquisite symmetry. We had stepped 
from the uninforming conventional soil of the outer 
slope, upon the inner section of the great cliff, torn 
asunder by the bavvanco, upon masses of red-brown 
scoria, and cellular crags still eloquent of the torture 
which once held them molten and plastile. Words 
cannot describe this extraordinary prospect, which, 
as a landscape, can have few rivals throughout the 
length and breadth of the globe. 

To compare the Titanic with the infinitesimal, 
imagine the Caldera as a pear divested of its pulp, 
and laid longitudinally on a table. Remove the 
upper part of the skin of the pear, and then we have 
in miniature a model of this long-extinct volcano, 
with its portly nucleus and narrowing elongated 
stem, where a river flows out by the bavranco de 



3°4 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



las Augustias into the sea. But the sides of the pear 
must be six and seven thousand feet high, soaring 
into peaks and edges of every conceivable shape ; 
and, precipitous though these environing mountains 
are, they do not now, like the walls of the pear, bend 
concavely towards their base. The pear, too, must 
be twelve or thirteen miles from head to stem, and 
more than six miles across in its broadest part. 

In truth, however, the Caldera baffles pen or 
pencil. Its immensity defies the artist, and a pen 
must here be inspired, indeed, to reproduce for others 
the effect it strives at. One may tell of its length 
and breadth, enumerate the mountains that hem it so 
zealously from the outer world, or even analyze the 
rocks and pebbles that cumber its terrific bed, and 
guess at the millenniums which have sped since its 
deep fires illumined the precipices that sink into it, 
thousands of feet, almost perpendicular, from its 
circuitous lip. But what, after all, will such dry 
records represent ? The colours of this great basin 
cannot be caught. It is impossible to do more than 
merely suggest the vivid contrasts between the 
tremendous walls of rock where they stand in 
shadow, and where, again, the sun brings forth their 
beauty by tracing the crimson, purple, and white 
crystalline lines which score them irregularly from 
peak to base ; between the sombre trunks of the firs 
that have died from old age, untroubled by the 
woodman's axe, and the fresh young pines glowing 
under the noonday sky with a vigorous intensity of 
life ; between the size of this gap, isolated from the 
world, and the stillness of it, broken but rarefy by 



THE CALDERA. 



3o5 



the echoing crash of an avalanche into its tumul- 
tuous depths. 

Long ages ago, the Caldera was probably inacces- 
sible from above. The mountains then did actually 
frame it concavely ; and from the Pico de los 
Muchachos, now about 7,500 feet above the sea, 
one might have looked fearfully over into this crater, 
at that time maybe 10,000 feet below, from an 
edge that positively impended. But, since the ex- 
tinction of the Caldera, its inner configuration has 
undergone a vast change. The mountains have 
fallen in : every avalanche that still echoes through 
the chasm helps to prove it. Their own elevation 
has been reduced, and the bed of the crater raised to 
its present level, about 2,000 feet above the sea. 
Thus the Caldera has become what it is, little more 
than the meeting place of the long slopes of debris 
that shoot down into it. Pines and firs clothe the 
slopes ; goats browse on them ; and in the heart of 
the pit a farmer has set up his dwelling. In short, 
but for the history told by the rocks in the Caldera 
bed, and the unmistakable marks of fusion in the 
rifts of the mountain side, one might well doubt its 
volcanic origin. 1 

The southern side of the Caldera, unlike the 
northern, swells into a single shapely mountain, that 

1 Leopold von Buch well terms the Caldera "the great chim- 
ney or vent for the energy which raised the island above the sea- 
level." Looking down into it from the edge of one of its 
precipices, four thousand feet high, he, like the rest of us, 
exclaims : " Where can anything so prodigious be found to 
rival this ? " 

21 



306 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



of Bejanao, crag upon crag, until a castellated 
turret crowns the pile. The outer bulk of Bejanao 
falls smoothly towards Los Llanos (the plains), 
just as the western slopes of Candelaria, Tigarafe, 
&c, rest upon the axis of the Pico de los 
Muchachos. 

From this Olympian standpoint, we were able to 
draw a precise line between the old and the modern 
volcanoes of Palma. The Caldera and all the north 
of the island have suffered volcanic ravages, but they 
are now at rest. On the southern side of Los 
Llanos, however, the faint yellow and purpled cones 
of two or three mountains show the symmetry of 
volcanoes recently in action. More than this. 
From depressions in their sides, we can trace broad 
gray-purple lines of lava trending seawards down 
the incline of the land. One stream is that of 1585, 
which is said to have cooked the fish in the sea for a 
distance of two miles from the coast. Another, of a 
lighter colour, makes a bold curved score upon the 
land, due to the diversion of older outflows, and then 
meanders past the red-roofed town of Los Llanos, 
stopping a little way from the shore. In the midst of 
these rivers of ruin are two or three islets, fertile and 
green with fig-trees and grain. Nor are the stereo- 
typed cinder hills wanting" to Los Llanos. One is a 
rich maroon colour ; another green with tobacco- 
plants ; a third yellow to its base ; and a fourth is 
carefully terraced into vineyards. Around and be- 
yond them are the towns of Los Llanos, Argual, El 
Paso, and Tazacorte, while countless gay villas 
nestle in the thick foliage of this sunny, prolific land. 



THE CALDERA STREAM. 



307 



All this wealth is due to the Caldera: the thin white 
lines which run along the barranco edge, and dive 
into the plateau, are aqueducts, carrying its never- 
ceasing waters into the fields and gardens. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Los Llanos — Its fonda — Curious visitors and fellow guests 
— Argual — Paso and the Mayor — Paso's school — The 
Caldera, by the barranco — Under the Pico de los Mucha- 
chos — The Caldera bed — The Cumbrecita Pass — Steep 
crags — Clouds brewing in the Caldera — The old and the 
new road over the cordillcra — The volcano of Tocade 
— We desert Don Pedro — A cruel voyage from Palma. 

We descended the walls of the barranco de las Augus- 
tias by a series of precipitous zigzags cut in the loose 
and consolidated volcanic ash, white and black, of 
which its lower parts are composed. The river crossed, 
a tiresome corresponding ascent brought us, in about 
two hours from the rim of Time (as our vantage 
point is called) to the town of Los Llanos. 

Here we stayed awhile. Los Llanos is the 
second town in Palma. With its adjacent townlets 
of Paso, Tazacorte, and Argual, it has a population 
of about 7,000, who seem to live merrily upon the 
fruits and gofio which abound on this happy plateau. 
At a distance, Los Llanos is a gay town : the red 
roofs contrast brightly with the tufts of palms in their 
midst, and the flat, black bell-tower of the church is 
not displeasing. But, within, it is dead and still. 
The streets are grassy, and the houses are mean. 



A CURIOUS INN 



Our beasts brought us to the door of the inn with a 
clatter that put the place in a tremor of excitement. 
Even the cura, who was cannily estimating the 
merits of a number of game cocks in crates outside a 
dealer's house, lifted his spectacled nose to see what 
it meant. 

Los Llanos has a fonda. That is to say, an 
enterprising merchant of the town keeps an empty 
house, into which a visitor may be inveigled, and 
wherein he may be forced to wonder whether he is 
to feed upon the furniture. The arrangements were 
in fact eccentric. We had good beds and few fleas ; 
but it was difficult to get anything to eat. Dinner 
was nominally at six, yet we did not see the soup 
until half-past seven. Then, indeed, when we had 
disturbed the whole neighbourhood with our objur- 
gations, a fat cook-maid would come flying into the 
house, obscured by savoury steam ; and the signal 
having gone down the street that the Englishmen 
were about to be fed, citizen after citizen dropped in, 
to watch us, and enjoy themselves. The owner of 
the inn, who aspired to sell his wines in London, 
made us taste them all ; and what grievous colics did 
we not suffer in our attempts to oblige him ! Men 
and women were all anxious to know whether the 
methods of life in London agreed in any way with 
those of Los Llanos ; and the young chemist from 
over the way civilly strangled a fowl under our noses, 
that we might see how cleverly such feats were done 
in his country. The cobblers who visited us gaped 
at our boots. The very domestics of the place 
asked to see our arms, to satisfy themselves that we 



3iQ 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



had blue blood in our veins. For, in our impatience, 
we had condescended to empty wash-basins, and 
search the larder with our own hands and eyes. 

Nevertheless, I recall Los Llanos pleasurably. 
When we were not hungry, or anxious to be off some- 
where, the stillness of the inn was soothing. One 
night, however, a waggon-load of peasants and 
others was shot into the house for a share of the 
accommodation. They played cards, with beans for 
counters, in the broad ante-room adjoining our bed- 
chamber ; and when they were tired of cards all the 
score of them lay down on the boards, and serenaded 
us with snores till break of day. A certain tall red- 
nosed lady, of questionable habits, also associates 
herself with this inn. She assumed mediaeval atti- 
tudes in our presence, and in her wilder moments 
could, by stratagem only, be kept out of our bedroom, 
though we were washing or lay in bed. To this day 
it is a problem unsolved whether she was ripe for 
Colney Hatch, or systematically inebriate. It was 
one or the other. And yet she had in her the raw 
material of a typical Palma woman. She might 
have been handsome and imperious, under the 
control of a reasonable mind. 

Of course, the Caldera is the chief loadstone of 
Los Llanos. But in the rich estate of Don Miguel 
Sotomayor, of Argual (a relation of the Marquis de 
Guisla), we had attractions of another kind, and a 
surfeit of agriculture of the highest class. This 
gentleman (who owns the Caldera) showed us his 
plantation with pardonable self-satisfaction. Here 
was a veritable garden of acclimatization. Enormous 



SOTOMA YORS ESTA TE. 311 

chestnut trees were side by side with superb royal 
palms, their unfoliaged boughs stretching over fields 
of sugar-cane ripe for the sickle. An ilex stood 
between a banana and an orange-tree. Potatoes and 
tobacco were in parallel fields. Don Miguel also, 
though with the kindest intentions, helped us to new 
stomach-aches by pressing upon us certain alcoholic 
distillations from his various crops. The secret of 
the exuberant fertility of this estate lies in the water. 
Tanks, with a fresh strong current through them, 
abounded ; and Don Miguel had also erected a 
luxurious bath-house, which nature had adorned with 
a wreathing of maidenhair ferns, geraniums, and 
China roses. Sotomayor's estate is indeed a byeword 
in Palma for all that is perfect. It is administered 
in patriarchal fashion. The house precincts are 
approached by a spacious quadrangular courtyard, 
the entrance being shaded by some enormous 
eucalypti. And on three sides of this enclosure are 
five or six distinct mansions for different members of 
the family, with marble heraldic bearings surmount- 
ing them. The name of Sotomayor appears in the 
list ot Spanish conquerors in 1495 ; it may be, there- 
fore, that for four centuries the chief inheritors of 
the name have lived together in this amiable clan- 
nishness. 

At another time we rode about a thousand feet 
higher up the plateau to the town of Paso, to whose 
Mayor we had a letter. His worship received us 
with the usual Spanish hospitality. But he had his 
business to achieve at the same time. Old crones 
and boisterous younger people bothered him with all 



312 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



sorts of pleas, while we chatted with him in his un- 
pretentious office. Nor could he get his petitioners 
to leave him, when they found such uncommon sub- 
jects of interest with their municipal father. But 
he had private as well as public annoyances. His 
orange trees were a prey to rats, who were wont to 
trot up the trunks, and clear out the pulp of as many 
fine fruit as they had time for. To remedy this, the 
mayor had clad the stems in sheets of tin, which he 
hoped would trick the dapper feet of his foes. 

The churches of Los Llanos and Paso are not 
interesting. In Paso there is an eccentric pulpit of 
painted wood, and this was hung with common 
penny engravings of the Holy Family, such as our 
own Roman image-shops abound with. Paso's 
school was more to our taste. The mayor was 
proud of it, and so was the spruce young school- 
master who presided, under a painting of Alphonso 
XII., over the seventy-five or eighty scholars of the 
school. Education is improving in the Canaries. In 
i860, out of a population of 237,036, no fewer than 
206,214 could neither read nor write. Now school- 
houses are broadly sown over the land, and the 
schoolmaster talks glibly of the number of pupils who 
have matriculated during his time. And, as in Paso, 
the pine-boarded walls of the schoolroom are hung 
with placards of moral maxims, in large type, for the 
incidental profit of the scholars : — 

" Be true children of the Church, and it will 
lead you along the road of temporal and eternal 
happiness." 

" After the Church, nothing deserves so much 



THE CALDERA FROM LOS LLANOS. 313 



respect as your school — in which the child is ma- 
tured and the man is completed." 

We visited the Caldera twice from Los Llanos — 
once by the conventional entrance, following the bed 
of the river ; and by the Cumbrecita, a pass on the 
south-eastern side of it. I know not which route is 
the more amazing. But the view obtained from the 
heights over Time, between Candelaria and the 
barranco is the most comprehensive and thrilling of 
the three. 

From Los Llanos, it is but an hour's ride to the 
gorge of the Caldera. The scene comes unex- 
pectedly. The barley and rye fields north of Los 
Llanos suddenly cease ; we turn a rock-shoulder ; 
and the prodigious gap is seen in the distance, with 
its spherical boundary of mountains. The track 
falls rapidly from the hill-side towards the river — 
too rapidly, indeed, for the precipice dropping to the 
gorge is about fifteen hundred feet. And, on the other 
side, the northern wall of the barranco, where it soars 
towards the Pico de los Muchachos, towers from a 
base of gray matrix about a thousand feet perpen- 
dicular. 

This entrance cannot be made too soon in the day. 
At daybreak, and for the three or four succeeding 
hours, every purple pinnacle of the Muchachos' 
mountain, every yellow pine on the Caldera spurs, 
and the rainbow-hues of the gorgeous rocks of the 
cavity are all preternaturally clear to the eye. The 
Caldera then seems to be bathed in an atmosphere 
peculiar to itself. But between nine and ten o'clock 
snowy wisps of vapour begin to form in the basin. 



3H 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



They, do not sail over the island from the sea, get 
transfixed on the mountain points, and thus descend 
within. The clouds actually generate under our 
eyes, and ascend until they attain an exterior current 
of air, which either rends them to shreds against 
the encircling rocks, or carries them away from the 
Caldera. But once the clouds have formed, view 
of the phenomenon as a whole is impossible. With 
the drifting of the vapour, the mountain tops may 
be temporarily uncovered or concealed ; but, save on 
exceptional days, it is said to be rare for the Caldera 
to clear again until the evening. 

From the southern side, we fell to the river bed 
and, crossing the water, climbed a steep slope of ash 
and slag and granitic rocks. By a multitude of de- 
viations, we at length got to a fountain under the 
final precipice of the Pico de los Muchachos, where 
it rose sheer above us into the clouds. Here we 
lunched sublimely, to the music of falling water, and 
the occasional boom of an avalanche. In front of 
us, across the basin, the Pico de Bejanao fought with 
the clouds — was now obscured ; later, uncloaked ; 
and again hid, save as to its purpled head, which 
kissed the blue high above all things terrestrial. 

With difficulty, I clambered to a remote cavity in 
the Muchachos' mountain. Here, deep in a fissure, 
the matrix was seen rugged and congested as only 
fused rocks can be. Hence the view into the depths 
of the Caldera was weird and beautiful. From all 
sides, save the south-west, verdant spurs thick with 
pines, plunged abruptly down to a common centre, 
some three thousand feet below us. This deepest 



THE C ALDER A BED. 



315 



depth if I may so call it, though small in area, was 
in sublime disorder. Pillars and blocks, hundreds of 
feet in vertical height, jostled each other in the con- 
tracted space of a few acres. The wreck of the 
avalanche of an hour ago had to accommodate itself 
among this ruin of the ten thousand avalanches that 
had preceded it. But, thanks to the many rills of 
water streaming from the mountain sides upon the 
chaos, and thanks to the fierce sun, which, when 
vertical, seems able to shine through the clouds of 
the Caldera, fallen rocks, crevices, and the new 
shadowed soil under the rocks, were all mantled 
with greenery. 

A few hundred feet below my perch was the house 
of the farmer of the Caldera, set on a knoll of turf fit 
for an English park. Enormous pines were above 
and below it ; wild fig-trees, bracken, and many a 
flower helped to deck the surroundings of this lonely 
house. And the tinkle of goat-bells contrasted with 
the noise of the tumbling rocks. Yet it is not too 
much to say that at any moment a mountain crest 
may topple over from the Muchachos' ridge, and 
crush house and outbuildings as a steam-hammer 
cracks a common nut. 

Our third view of the Caldera was by the high 
pass called the Cumbrecita. To revert to my analogy 
of the hollow pear skin. We had first crossed the 
pear at its stem : this was going from Time to Los 
Llanos by the barranco de las Augustias. Secondly, 
we had entered the pear by its stem, proceeded along 
it, and climbed to the northern side of it where it is 
broadest : this was marked by our rest under the 



316 THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



cliff of the Muchachos. Now, by the Cumbrecita, 
we ascended the plateau east of Los Llanos, and 
turned sharply to the north between the buttress 
of Bejanao and the terminal cliffs of the cordillera 
of Palma, so as to strike the Caldera, or the pear, on 
the southern side. Speaking roughly, the Cumbrecita 
is about 3,000 feet above the sea level. We were 
therefore nearly half-way between the pit bottom and 
the mountain edges of the Caldera lip. 

The day was again serene and clear at the outset. 
The volcano de Tocade, south of the plain, enchained 
attention by its delicate coral and saffron colouring, 
in contrast with the black river of lava which had 
poured from a depression in it. The pines fairly 
dazzled us with the glow of their gold ; and the stern 
ravines of the cordillera, as we neared them, ennobled 
the scene as a whole. 

But all too soon the clouds brewed around us : we 
had barely time to groan over the glorious sunny 
heat of the crater, and, in a series of apostrophes, 
express our rapturous admiration of the Muchachos' 
rocks in front of us, when everything was obliterated, 
and we were in the heart of a mass of seething 
vapour. The arete of the Cumbrecita is grand in 
the extreme. The Pico de Bejanao soars from one 
side of it, and on the other the Pico del Capitan 
stands sentinel with a perpendicular cliff of at least 
1,000 feet, and an isolated pinnacle of about 400 feet, 
called the Rock " de la Paira," adjoining it. Of this 
last, our guide said that it was too steep even for 
goats — " but shepherds have ascended it, two or 
three in company, tied with ropes, for the sake of the 
good herbage upon it." 



THE OLD AND THE NEW ROADS. 317 



Before the clouds were upon us, we had time to 
scramble for about a mile along the eastern curve 
of the Caldera, following an aqueduct, dated 1858, 
which taps a fountain in the side of the Pico del 
Capitan. Our course was rugged enough, and the 
dive of the mountain spurs beneath us so abrupt 
that the stones we dislodged soon rolled out of sight, 
with a noisy rumble that told of their inevitable 
trail. But, with the generation of the clouds, the 
Caldera was blotted out, and we had to recur to 
memory for an idea of it, though we were in its 
midst. And here, swathed in the dry fog, while we 
sat with our backs against the pine trunks, our 
guide would have slept till nightfall if we had per- 
mitted it. 

There are two direct roads between Los Llanos 
and the capital of Palma. Both have to surmount 
the cordillcra which bisects the island. The older 
road, known now as such, bends to the south, winds 
between Palma's modern volcanoes, and finally 
strikes through the mountains by a pass that is 
tedious but not very steep. The " new road," as 
it is called, elects to follow a bee-line between the 
two towns. On each side of the cordillera, it con- 
cedes but little to the sharp rise of the country. 
The zigzags to the watershed are nearly as severe as 
those of Taganana in Tenerife. From the summit, 
one looks down the western incline, through a noble 
forest of firs and pines, at the plateau of Los Llanos 
and Paso, spread with the precision of a map ; and 
east, by heaths grown to trees, laurels and chestnuts 



3i8 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



(each in their respective zone), to the high ground 
over Santa Cruz, and the Peak of Tenerife beyond 
the sea. It is curious that the line of demarcation 
between the pines and heaths should here be so 
emphatic. At the same altitude of about 5,000 feet, 
pines alone grow on the western side of the water- 
shed, and heaths alone on the eastern. 

Of these two roads, the longer is the more attrac- 
tive. Twice did we traverse the shorter and steeper 
road. Once a loose tongue whispered in Los Llanos 
that the mail boat was on the eve of sailing for 
Tenerife. In hot haste, therefore (for our time had 
run out), we sped towards Santa Cruz, only to find, 
upon arrival, that the report was false. For its 
ferns and huge laurels, moss-clad as to their trunks, 
and for the sweet transition from chestnut woods to 
groves of palms, and lanes of tropical flowers per- 
fumed with tropical odours, this route is worthy 
of praise. 

But the other is much the more varied. By it we 
wind, at a gentle elevation, through some dainty pine 
forests, bestrewn with lichened rocks, and balmy 
with their own breath and that of the gum cistus 
bushes which also abound in it. As we ascend to 
the volcano of Tocade, the outline of the Caldera 
behind gradually defines itself against the sky. We 
trace the elongated pear-shape as we had not before 
traced it. And, with disinterested feelings, we can 
admire hence the pictorial effect of the eddies of 
white cloud which chance to be driving from the sea 
into the crater, by the barranco mouth. 

But the exceeding beauty of the tints of the vol- 



THE VOLANCO OF TOCADE. 319 



canic ash-slopes round about us draw off attention 
even from the vanishing Caldera. This district 
is only a few square miles in area ; and yet it pro- 
vides all the choicest features of a great land burnt 
and torn by subterranean fires and forces. At one 
time we are struggling up an ascent of the finest 
pumice, a trial to the eyes, and passing an ochre 
hillock with sparse yellow pines upon it. Ten 
minutes later, we have done with the hillock. Before 
us is a miniature desert of black ash, from which an 
isolated cliff of gaunt reddish scoriae is protruded, 
and with natural bombshells scattered over it. The 
heat of this dark ash is such that, though riding, we 
sweat hardly less than the men on their feet. But 
a moment's pause, and our faces are dry, so absorp- 
tive is the warm, invigorating air ! 

By this road, we pass close to the crater of 1585. 
The volcano of Tocade itself is so smooth in its 
modelling that it seems nothing but a gigantic sand- 
hill. Its reddish-yellow slopes support hardly a 
handful of vegetation : some wisps of feeble grass, 
some thyme, and mean retama ; nothing else. A 
few red-beaked choughs fly screaming over our 
heads, as if in disgust with this unproductive desert. 

Thus gradually we reach the water-shed in this 
part of the island, about one thousand feet lower 
than that by the new road. Several narrow ruts 
in the bright red matrix mark the dividing point. 
The descent briskens, and here we are confronted 
by magnificent aerial effects. We are level with the 
clouds, and close to them, yet separated from them 
by a strip of unclouded space. They hang like a 



320 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



colossal fleece, with a menace of suffocation, thick 
and ponderous. Nevertheless, over the crest of 
them (which proves that they are lower than they 
seem) the Peak of Tenerife is visible, sunny and 
divine, framed between its own blue sky and the 
extraordinary white cumulus, in an incomparable 
vignette of Nature. 

Hence the descent is more and more rapid, as we 
enter the laurel woods ; but three tedious hours 
have to pass ere Santa Cruz is within hail. 

We were no sooner again settled in the stuffy 
capital than the local lethargy overcame us anew. 
So that our six last days in the island were devoted 
to little save eating and drinking, bathing and con- 
juring a ship to appear. On our return from Los 
Llanos, we had been compelled, out of respect for 
our health, to separate from Don Pedro and his 
large wife. The smells of his hotel were really, as 
we told him, too paralysing. Besides, the bedroom 
he gave us was too public for our English tastes. 
It had a couple of windows, opening not upon the 
air of heaven, but upon an inner passage, which 
was a thoroughfare. Thus we were not even to be 
asphyxiated in comfort. Rude ragamuffins lounged 
perennially outside these windows from the first 
cock-crow ; and the mysteries of our toilet, from the 
tub in a patent indiarubber bath, to the washing 
of our teeth, were bared to them, to be discussed 
later by all their ragged companions. 

This flitting was a cruel blow to Don Pedro, but 
it could not be avoided. In his conceit at lodging 
us, he had opened his mind at odd times, and 



THE RIVAL HOTEL. 



321 



declared his loftiest ambitions. There was no 
English vice-consul in Palma; or at best a super- 
annuated one. What would not he (Don Pedro) 
give if he could have the honour of unfurling our 
flag upon his house-top ? In short, he nudged us to 
speak a good word for him in London. This sly 
intriguing, however, did not deter him from the 
impolitic step of presenting us with a bill conceived 
on purpose for us. And so we parted, not friends. 

Of the other hotel in Santa Cruz, but few 
words need be told. The proprietor was overjoyed 
at our preference for him. We were the guests of 
honour at his table d'hote. Such extra luxuries as 
new milk and sponge cakes before breakfast, and 
chocolate late in the evening were genially provided 
for us. All our reasonable wishes were laws. And 
in his elation of heart and gratitude, the good man 
let us into the secret recesses of his establishment, 
where he made soap with blue veins in it, and of 
no ill-smelling ingredients. Here we paid 3s. 4d. a 
day, and gained flesh every hour. And here, after 
three long weeks in Palma, we met the padron 
or master, of a smack, who purposed sailing for 
Tenerife, as soon as he had had his breakfast. His 
boat was small but clean ; and we were welcome 
to a passage. 

I will say nothing about an abortive excursion, one 
hot afternoon, in search of the cave of Mazo* the 
inscription upon which I have already mentioned. 
We had a guide who was drunk, and who felt such 
astonishment that my friend should object to his 
tipsy embraces, that he left us in a huff. He was a 

22 



322 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



gentleman, he said, and he expected to be treated 
as a gentleman. We wandered for a few hours over 
the lava-beds of the south-east of Palma, and returned 
defeated. This was an apt prologue to our new night 
at sea. 

The smack sailed gracefully while the day lasted. 
The padron even promised to land us that same 
evening. But the wind lulled ; dark clouds con- 
gregated ahead of us ; when the sun set we were 
only half-way between the islands, and all the 
portents were bad. Then up sprang a gale ; and 
throughout a wild night we had nothing to mitigate 
our miseries except the hope of day. The dawn 
broke, and showed us the land — all black and awe- 
some, and deep in cloud, save where the surf swelled 
into gothic shapes as the sea rushed upon the 
shore. " Impossible ! " said the master, when we 
urged him to run in and drown us, rather than 
prolong the elephantine oscillations with which his 
ship indulged us, while he lay off in hesitation. 
There was no help for it. In the storm we could 
not land at Orotava ; and so the order was given 
"On to Santa Cruz." For seven hours more, there- 
fore, we took our buffetings, while the vessel slowly 
fought her way round the island, and laboriously 
tacked into the harbour of the capital. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Historical summary — Bethencourt and his successors — Dis- 
putes about the Canaries between Spain and Portugal — 
Generous native princes — Rejon, and the conquest of Grand 
Canary — Las Palmas— Ascension Day in the cathedral- 
Bones and copes— Paintings — The hospital — The English 
sailor among the Spaniards— Theatre and markets — 
Spanish justice — The harbour — Cloudy weather — The 
evening promenade — A funeral and burial. 

" Grand Canary is so called because Almighty God 
created it to be the head of the other six Fortu- 
nate Islands." This is the opinion of the Jesuit 
Sosa ; and for the last two centuries, Las Palmas, 
the capital of Grand Canary, has never ceased to 
urge its superior claims to be the capital of the 
archipelago. Even now, in 1887, 1 the contest 
between Santa Cruz and Las Palmas is very keen ; 
the merchants of the two cities are in unequivocal 
rivalry. "We have the shipping, trade — there can 
be no doubt about that," says Santa Cruz. " And 
we shall have it " — with no less assurance, says Las 
Palmas — " when our grand new harbour is com- 

1 And now, in 1888, I daresay the deplorable collision and 
loss of life in the harbour of Las Palmas will be pressed into 
service as a fresh proof of the superiority of the Grand Canary 
capital, in drama no less than in prospective commerce. 



324 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



pleted." Las Palmas is more energetic than Santa 
Cruz ; and I fancy it will in the end crush the 
present capital even as that superseded Laguna. 

The history of Grand Canary, before Spain annexed 
it, is very creditable to its aboriginal inhabitants. 
It is, in fact, so much involved with the European 
adventurers previous to De Lugo, the conqueror of 
Tenerife and Palma, that a few words of general 
Canarian history may be given to help forward its 
elucidation. 

Until the year 1402, the various European mariners 
who touched in Canarian waters did so with no 
definite idea of conquest. Contrary winds, the need 
of water, curiosity, and a thirst for slaves, led the 
first Mallorquins, Genoese, French, and Spanish 
vessels into the island harbours ; and, their purposes 
satisfied, they sailed away. But in 1402 a certain 
Norman gentleman, Juan de Bethencourt, sold his 
lands, fitted out a ship, and expatriated himself, with 
serious designs in his head. He had heard vague 
reports about the Canaries, and, with but slight 
attempts to substantiate these rumours, he started 
on his romantic expedition — 

" Con gallardos Franceses y Espanoles, 
De sojuzgar naciones codiciosos. . . ." 

At Corunna, the ship narrowly escaped destruction 
by the Earl of Crawford, and sundry other Scotch 
and English adventurers. But Bethencourt eluded 
these enemies, surmounted the hesitation of certain 
of his comrades, whose courage failed them at Cadiz, 



THE GRATIFIED MONARCH. 



325 



paid his respects to the King of Spain, under whose 
patronage he promptly put himself, and in due time 
reached Lanzarote, the most north-easterly of the 
islands. Here he was pacifically received by the 
king, Guadarfra, who met him attired in a cloak 
of skins, and wearing a diadem of seashells ; and 
Bethencourt at once took possession, when the 
native potentate had accepted the proferred friend- 
ship and protection of the King of Spain. " I cannot 
be vassal to anyone, because I was born a lord," 
said Guadarfra ; but this incidental demur did not 
prevent the Europeans from portioning out his 
territory, and domesticating themselves. 

The conquest thus achieved (and indeed nothing 
could have been simpler than the acquisition of 
Lanzarote and Fuerteventura), Bethencourt re- 
turned provisionally to Spain. Henry III. gave 
him audience at Seville, and willingly allowed him 
to do homage for the island that was already his, 
and for the other six islands which, he doubted not, 
were no less easy to acquire, 

" The good disposition of your mind is proclaimed 
by your acknowledgment of the rights of my crown, 
and I am much gratified that you have come to 
render homage for these certain islands which I am 
told are about two hundred leagues distant, and 
of which my own subjects have scarcely heard so 
much as a word." 

Thus spake the King, and he gave Bethencourt 
money and men to aid him in the conquest that was 
yet before him. 

But, in the meantime, the gentle-blooded colonists 




326 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



of Lanzarote had begun to slight the innocent natives 
who had welcomed them with such extraordinary 
benignity. The chaplains who had accompanied 
the expedition made converts, and baptized all who 
consented to be baptized. But, to the despoiled 
Guadarfra, this new religion could not justify or 
atone for the deportation of his own kith and kin 
to be sold as slaves. " What a people are these 
Europeans! " wailed the hapless ex-monarch. "And 
what kind of a religion is theirs, which, while they 
praise its sanctity, allows them to behave traitrously 
towards us, and like tricksters among themselves ? 
They tell us we have an immortal soul, and all pro- 
ceed from one Father ; but at the same time they 
despise us as if we were the vilest of beings ; they 
sell us for slaves ; they treat us as barbarians and 
infidels, and forget how greatly we have honoured 
them, and that we have never failed in the fulfilment 
of our agreements with them." Is it not pitiful 
that such plaints as these have been the eternal 
outcome of what we are pleased to call the march of 
civilization ? 

In justice to Bethencourt, it must be said that he 
did not sanction the malpractices of his friends. 
Wjfien he returned to Lanzarote, he composed 
matters, and inaugurated a rule of benevolence and 
strength conjoined. Guadarfra was baptized under 
the name of Louis ; and many of the natives were 
enrolled with the Europeans to help in the subjection 
of the other islands. 

Fuerteventura, which adjoins Lanzarote, soon fell 
Thence, Bethencourt sailed west to Palma, but, 



TRICKS OF WAR. 



327 



meeting with a repulse, he moved towards Gomera 
instead, where the natives were at first as gentle 
and unsuspicious as the Lanzarotes. From Gomera 
he passed to Hierro, then famous for its fabulous 
tree (the " Tilo," or Laurus fastens), which supplied 
all the land with the water distilled from its leaves ; 
water, moreover, which had the power of giving 
fresh hunger to a sated man. Here the king, with a 
hundred and eleven of his chief subjects, offered 
hospitality to Bethencourt, who requited it by selling 
the entire hundred and twelve into slavery. 

This ended Bethencourt's work in the Canaries. 
He withdrew to Lanzarote to arrange the govern- 
ment of his principality. Finally, he again returned 
to the Continent, to plead in Spain, and before the 
Pope himself, for a bishop to take over the spiritual 
control of this new fold of Christendom. In this 
endeavour also he attained his end ; and then he 
died, in 1425, in his own country of Normandy. 

The complications and troubles which confuse the 
history of Europe in the Canaries during the ensuing 
three quarters of a century would demand a volume 
for their narration and analysis. But to us they 
are not worth such tedious elaboration. Suffice to 
say, that neither Hierro nor Gomera was conquered 
without much loss of blood; and that, as time passed, 
and new warriors came to the archipelago, ousting 
or inheriting from the earlier conquerors, the puzzle 
of proprietorship grew as complex as the history of 
the islands. Portugal claimed the Canaries by right 
of purchase from Maciot de Bethencourt, the first 
Bethencourt's degenerate nephew and heir. Spain 



328 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



held to its original suzerainty, and moreover had 
fresh claim through a Spaniard, De Campos, to 
whom, no less than to the Infanta of Portugal, 
Maciot had disposed of his rights. The Pope, 
Eugene IV., in 1431, adjudicated this difficulty in 
favour of Spain ; though Portugal continued to vex 
the islands with expeditions and new claims. 

During these initial land-grabbing forays, Tenerife 
and Grand Canary were treated with the respect 
that proceeds from fear. While Bethencourt was 
swearing fealty to Henry III., Gadifer, one of his 
captains in Lanzarote, made an attempt upon Grand 
Canary. This was repulsed. Again, in 1405, Bethen- 
court himself was driven back to his boats by the 
king, Artemi, when he tried to possess the island 
de facto as well as de verbo. It was then, according 
to some historians, that he gave Canary its prenomen 
of Grand ; though, according to others, this pre- 
eminence was only due to the surpassing size of its 
dogs. 

In 1420, Prince Henry of Portugal sent an ex- 
pedition against Grand Canary. This the Canarians, 
" whose vigilance and energy were unceasing," 
easily discomfited. For the next forty years, they 
received the reward for their bravery by being left 
generally untroubled. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, 
but a few hours' sail distant, were, in the interval, 
being thoroughly Europeanized. But, in 1461, the 
epidemic of invasion again seized the original con- 
querors and their descendants. Diego de Herrara, 
the inheritor of the Canaries, in 1461, got a footing 
on Grand Canary, by promising not to commit the 



THE GENEROUS BARBARIAN. 



329 



least act of hostility, and to establish a perpetual 
peace with the islanders. He then formally took 
possession, decamped to his boats, and had the fact 
of his ownership notified in Europe. Five years 
later, another Diego, Diego de Silva, sails to Grand 
Canary on behalf of his master of Portugal. He is 
not permitted to make any definite conquest ; but 
nevertheless he enrolls the island among the pos- 
sessions of the Prince of Portugal. Thus the old 
dilemma recurs. Spain and Portugal are in new 
conflict, and a private person, De Herrara, profers 
his claim in the teeth of them both, though as a 
suzerain indeed of Spain. 

An arbitration at Lisbon, in 1470, seems to settle 
this dispute in favour of Spain ; and, immediately 
afterwards, the Portuguese of De Silva are amal- 
gamated with the Spaniards of De Herrara for a 
definite and complete conquest of the island. But 
such unions seldom last longer than the echo of the 
words which express them. And so we find the 
Portuguese fighting independently, and getting into 
trouble from which they are free to escape as best 
they may, unaided. De Silva let himself and his 
men be cooped up in a circular walled space, used 
by the Canarians as a place of punishment ; and 
here, but for the interposition of Guanarteme, the 
king, they would assuredly have died at the hands 
of the outraged and angry natives. This monarch 
visited the prisoners privately, and when De Silva 
pleaded to be let out, and allowed to leave the 
country, he thus addressed him : " European, you 
and your men have of your own free will imprisoned 



33° 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



yourselves in this corral, the place of evil-doers. 
None of you can elude the consequences of your 
temerity. You have done me grievous wrong, and 
yet I am willing to forgive you, in the face too of this 
multitude, who demand vengeance for your inso- 
lence. If you were Canarians, I should have con- 
fidence in you, and would propose a stratagem to 
save yourselves from this danger. I would advise 
you at once to lay hands on me, to secure me, and 
even to make as if you would kill me unless my 
subjects allow you to withdraw. . . ." 

Before such nobility of soul, no wonder De Silva 
fell on his knees, with sobs of gratitude. To 
this ruse, he owed his deliverance. But Guanar- 
teme the king had sacrificed his country to his 
own generous instincts. His subjects suspected 
him ; he became a Christian ; and joined his voice 
with that of the Europeans in trying to evangelize 
his fellow-countrymen. At this conjuncture, Spain 
determined to make the most strenuous efforts, once 
and for all, to occupy Grand Canary. De Herrara 
was by special grant recognized as king over the four 
islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Hierro, and 
Gomera. His claim to. Grand Canary he surrendered 
absolutely. Tenerife and Palma were still uncon- 
quered. 

Thus it happened that, on Ascension Day of the 
year 1478, a troop of between six and seven hundred 
Spanish soldiery, under a brave captain named 
Rejon, landed on the narrow strip of yellow sands 
which separates Las Palmas from the Isleta at the 
northern extremity of Grand Canary. They were 



CONQUEST OF GRAND CANARY. 



33 1 



accompanied by an ecclesiastic named Bermudez, 
who said mass as soon as the men had made a camp 
on the sands ; and, weapons in hand, all the men 
joined their priest in a loud prayer to God to help 
them to exterminate the miserable barbarians they 



B.Hc Mogiiiih 
Bahia de Tat 



Punta de 
v < ,'lalsleta 

■:-'% / ' 

W (if to. derlct Lit 2 

IK 



B.deGuay, lib \ / fW S/ ft / %^\\ 

Pta. de Taimnltd,,, / H ) nit ih ' < .>'■/}' 

Ptn r/r in-- Ai ,m _ ' ( ' ' 

B d, JT 1 > " (t ° S^M.n 

'a Aliliu •■ ' *• A'/.M'W, : ' ,-.■'"}„ / °'\-° 



Bahia dr ^ v , ' 
Tasartico w 



jfflASI PALM AS 



^Pwta de Maspalomas 



1 1 ,,,/.;.■ r c'> Bmttall sc. 

grand CANARY : 72 miles in circumference. 



were about to attack. However, six years of in- 
cessant fighting had to elapse before Spain could 
sing Te Deum in Canary. In the meantime, Rejon 
had been transfixed by a spear (while fighting in 
Gomera) ; Bermudez had been banished for his pre- 
sumption by a later leader of the assailants ; and 



332 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



thousands of men - at - arms who had done well 
in the wars of Granada died bruised to death by 
the stones and big clubs of these "miserable people." 
The Canarians showed more valour, more martial 
strategy, and very much more of the generosity that 
ought to appertain to Christian men than these 
doughty, braggart Castillians. Nor were they so 
completely crushed when the Te Deum was sung 
that thereafter they gave their conquerors no anxiety 
and no care other than that of separating them into 
bands, for sale as slaves in the Eastern markets. 

This was four hundred years ago, and now, in a.d. 
1887, we find by the site of Rejon's first camp a city 
of some 20,000 inhabitants, with tall business blocks 
shading the chief streets, public gardens, clubs, 
hotels, and a stately cathedral of lava-stone facing 
the municipal building across a broad pavement 
which the citizens and their wives adapt for their 
promenade in the cool of the evening. The early 
Spaniards christened the embryo capital from the 
number of palm trees in the neighbourhood. The 
palms still grow among the houses of the town, and 
clumps of them, fifty and sixty feet high, cap the 
hillocks and cliffs of the broken upland country 
which lies beyond Las Palmas. Moreover, the 
cathedral is dedicated to Saint Anna, because, soon 
after landing from his ships, Rejon saw the figure of 
a woman, whom he identified as the mother of the 
Virgin. The vision was an omen of good ; hence a 
vow which is now ratified in the Cathedral of Santa 
Anna. Rejon himself is memoralized in the street 
Rejon. Thus, here, as elsewhere, one may read 



ASCENSION DAY. 



333 



history in stones, and find profitable diversion in 
marking how the past and the present are indis- 
solubly blended. 

Like Rejon and his troop, I landed at Las Palmas 
on Ascension morning, after a quiet passage in the 
night from Santa Cruz of Tenerife. A drive of three 
miles along the sandy peninsula which separates the 
harbour from the town, brought me into the capital 
of Grand Canary. When the wind is cross, this 
loose sand must be as troublesome as that of Pesth. 

Las Palmas was in a joyous mood on this igth 
of May. The daily papers were able to report 
" the happy intelligence that His Majesty the infant 
King of Spain has successfully cut his first tooth." 
Added to this, was the very grand religious function 
at the cathedral in an hour or two : an epoch in the 
year. The citizens questioned each other about it, 
and were as much interested in its success as a ring 
of Chicago merchants in the contrivance of a " cor- 
ner " in pork. Which of the reverend fathers would 
lead the service ? Were the boys with the sweetest 
voices to take the solos, or were these to be given 
to careless little urchins, who no more heeded the tone 
of their throats than the state of their scarlet cas- 
socks ? Would his illustriousness the Bishop attend ? 
or was he still confined by a cold to his stately palace 
of black and white stone, so luxuriously sequestered 
among groves of palms, orange trees, and oleanders, 
but a bullet's cast from the cathedral porch ? How 
would the fair Concepcion look on this bright day, 
while trooping with the other maidens of her convent 
school into the cool aisle of the church ? Would 



334 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



she be promoted into a bonnet, in honour of the fes- 
tival ? Alas ! it was also but too probable that, under 
this sunny sky, she had bloomed so rapidly since the 
festival of the Invention (May 3rd), that her smooth 
cheeks would now be hid by their first coat of 
powder, permitted by the sisters as an early mark of 
young womanhood. 

Ascension Day was as much to the children of the 
city as to the adults and the young men and maidens. 
Was not the cathedral floor, from the west portal to 
the foot of the high altar, where the paschal candle 
lifted its six yards of wax towards the clerestory 
windows — was not it all thick with rose-leaves which, 
when the function was over, might be gathered by 
any that pleased, and taken home ere the episcopal 
blessing and the smell of the incense had evaporated 
from them ? 

It is by such bonds as these, tender as well as 
strong, that the Catholic Church keeps her worship- 
pers in affectionate union with herself. It is a great 
relief, and undoubtedly bracing to the spirit, to be 
purged from sin, and the thought of sin, once a week 
or once a month. But by these gracious and cheer- 
ful religious galas, the church proves that she is as 
genial as she is vigorous and benevolent. 

The cathedral was early crowded with a motley 
congregation : majestic matrons, who fanned them- 
selves, while they gossipped upon their knees ; troops 
of school-girls, those of poor degree in black dresses 
and quaint bonnets of the " poke " style, and others 
in short blue dresses, white sashes, white stockings, 
high-heeled boots, and tall hats of yellow straw, from 



THE DEPOSITION OF THE CANDLE. 335 



which their hair hung tailwise upon their backs ; 
young men, interested in the maidens, stood against 
the pillars of the church, with the handles of their 
canes in their mouths ; and here and there a wonder- 
struck countryman, whose bare legs and sheepskin 
cloak made the acolytes laugh unfeignedly in going 
between the altar and the choir. 

The musical part of the " function " which fol- 
lowed was delicious. Las Palmas is justly proud of 
its organist. At the elevation of the Host, the tender 
tremolo of the instrument was ecstatic. And, later, 
at the conclusion of the ceremony, the organ sent 
forth a broad joyous peal of thanksgiving that cheered 
heart and soul, like the bestowal of some solid and 
surpassing boon. 

A curious scene ensued upon the concession of 
the episcopal blessing. The wickets connecting the 
aisle with the avenue between the altar and the 
coro (in the middle of the building) were thrown 
open ; and a mob of boys and girls and tiny 
barelegged children scampered up the altar steps, 
and fell upon their hands and knees among the rose- 
leaves. These were scraped into heaps, packed into 
handkerchiefs and wrappings, and carried off with 
glee and chattering. 

Then a new tumult arose. Priests, acolytes and 
some of the laity surrounded the fat paschal candle, 
sheathed in tin, which had stood in honour to the 
left of the altar since Easter week, but was now to 
be removed. A ladder was reared against it, to 
enable a nimble boy to draw from it the five sym- 
bolical nails. Afterwards, six or seven men joined 



336 



THE CANARY IS LA NDS. 



their strength, and lifted the great candle from its 
heavy leaden stand. The boys did not scruple to 
clap their hands with a will when they saw the 
thing prone upon the marble pavement, like the 
dead body of a white cylindrical giant ; and the 
infants among the rose-leaves paused to gape at it. 

Finally, ropes were brought, and planks for a 
causeway down the altar steps. The men threw off 
their coats, two or three of the clergy, with beaming 
faces, tucked up their sleeves, and the portly candle- 
stick was taken in tow. At first, all the tugging of 
all the men and boys could not stir the monster. 
But the encouraging shouts of the contractor, and 
the united efforts at length shuffled it an inch or 
two. And so, in due time, it was pulled down the 
incline, and, with a riot that sounded singular 
in such a place, urged all along the aisle, and out 
by the northern porch, into a large chamber already 
full to overflowing with wooden figures, machinery, 
and the other paraphernalia of the Church's pro- 
perties. 

The cathedral of Las Palmas contains few anti- 
quities of general interest. But the bones of Viera, 
that model historian, and of the local poet, Cairasco 
de Figueroa, of whose abilities Cervantes thought 
very highly, redeem it from the charge of sterility. 
Indeed, there are plenty of bones in the well-kept 
vaults under the altar. I was there shown a neat 
row of pigeon-holes, each filled by a bishop, a dean, 
or a canon ; and at the end of the white-washed 
chamber was a sunken recess where a number of 
prelates and other church dignitaries lay inter- 



ART IN LAS PALM AS. 



337 



mingled. It seems that fit accommodation is 
limited. Hence, the deceased vacate their niches 
according to seniority. When a new comer pleads 
for a place, his predecessor is relegated pellmell to 
the corner. It was noticeable that the skulls of 
these ecclesiastics were furnished with sets of teeth 
worthy of the Guanches themselves. And yet it is 
improbable that they, like the Guanches, systema- 
tically abstained from drinking during a hot dinner ; 
nor were they likely to confine their post-prandial 
libations to cold water. 

Here, as in Santa Cruz of Palma, is a wealth of 
copes, and other richly-embroidered vestments. And 
here again it is said that certain of the vestments 
came originally from London, in the time of the 
Reformation. A gold chalice, the gift of Philip IV., 
in 1696, is worth admiration; and so is a crimson 
flag of the conquistador of Grand Canary, be he whom 
he may. Sundry trivial relics (knuckle-bones and 
the like) of St. Placidus, in a lozenge-shaped 
reliquary, have a special signification. For it is to 
this saint that the Canarians have learnt to pray 
when a plague of locusts comes upon them. A cer- 
tain modern chalice of gold, weighing 7 lbs. avoir- 
dupois, is much appreciated by the sacristan of the 
cathedral ; and so is the massive silver chandelier 
that hangs in the nave. This, the gift of the Bishop 
Ximenez, in the 17th century, weighs about 2\ cwt., 
and cost more than £yoo. 

The cathedral paintings are few, and of no great 
merit. An Annunciation, by I know not whom, is 
the most pleasing. But a series of large new can- 

23 



338 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



vasses of the crucifixion, by Losada, hung in the 
northern chapels, are much appreciated locally. 
Their realism is evidently a new feature here : and 
greatly it impresses the simple peasants who come 
and gape and groan beneath them. The face of 
Christ is uniformly rather weak than sublime. 
Losada excels in the brutal : his red-capped execu- 
tioner, following Christ and the cross, and carrying 
hammer and nails, is a bold compound of cruel 
indifference and the presumption of a jack-in- 
office. Again, in the second picture of the series, 
the same character is depicted holding Christ by a 
rope round the waist, and threatening Him with a 
rod in the right hand. Here the brutality of his 
expression is worsened by a diabolical grin that must 
have come to the artist from a face with African 
blood in it. In short, Losada's pictures are remark- 
able for the mild inanity of the Christ, and the 
repulsiveness of the executioner. The latter indeed 
gives them a Zolaesque character almost too pro- 
nounced for their surroundings. 

One other work of art must be mentioned. This 
is a huge rough fresco on the south part of the 
western wall. It represents S. Cristobal carrying 
the Holy Child through the water, which reaches to 
his knees. But the gigantic proportions of the 
painting (the figure being about twenty feet high), 
the club in the saint's hand, and his ferocious ex- 
pression, in spite of the accessories, are all acutely 
suggestive of an illustration from an old nursery tale 
of giants and bloodshed. 

After the cathedral, the hospital of Las Palmas 



THE HOSPITAL. 



339 



deserves a visit. It is a comfortable public insti- 
tution, gay with flowers, brightened by cheerful 
sisters of mercy, and covered as to its walls with 
the portraits of ancient Spaniards. Hundreds of 
so-called foundlings here spend the first years of 
their life. Formerly, they were hung to door 
knockers, or slipped into the patios of great houses. 
The hospital for expositos has done away with 
the excuse for such reckless desertion. And now, 
day and night, a good sister keeps watch at the 
revolving cupboard whereby the babes are passed 
from the street into the establishment without 
ceremony or scandal. The infants are at once 
bathed, examined, named after the saint of the day, 
and enrolled with their predecessors. The sister 
in charge of the department tells me, with a smile 
of sorrow, that the number of new inmates is so many 
per week. Of course it is. With such a system 
in vogue in England, who can doubt that the popu- 
lation nightmare would be even more terrifying to 
conscientious Malthusians than it is at present ? 
These hospitals for foundlings were instituted in 
all the larger towns of the Canaries two centuries 
ago. Stalwart soldiers and sailors were then much 
in request for the various wars of the kings of 
Spain. Public morality was secondary to the satis- 
faction of State requirements. Now, however, it is 
vastly different. The islands are even over-popu- 
lated. Yet, the foundling hospitals are kept open ; 
immorality is encouraged : and the innocent have to 
bear the burdens of the guilty. 

I found an English sailor in the hospital. He had 



34o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



been put ashore by a passing coaler, and, after some 
weeks of severe illness, was now convalescing. In 
the meantime, he had never opened his mouth for 
conversational purposes. His faculty of speech had 
got diverted into his faculty of observation ; and he 
smartly criticised the management of the hospital. 
He complained that the sisters of mercy spent too 
much time in praying in the bedrooms. " Three 
weeks in bed, and never once a wash ! " And, having 
thus relieved himself, the simple fellow assumed that 
the Spaniard forbears to wash because his skin is by 
nature swarthy, and therefore less likely to betray 
him in his uncleanliness. But, whether he would or 
no, this British tar had gained a friend. We were 
sitting in the hospital garden, when a lean sickly 
Spaniard came by, and his cadaverous face lit up with 
a smile at the sight of us. He sat down by the sailor, 
who allowed him to fondle his big brown fingers and 
tatooed wrist as if he were a girl. <s We gets on 
nicely sir, him and me," said my countryman, with 
an affectionate glance down his red nose at his com- 
panion. " He don't talk English any more than the 
others, poor fellow, but he tries to look as if he did, 
and he's one of the cleanest of them all. I don't know 
what's up with him, but he twists about awful, some- 
times, though he tries to keep it to himself." When 
I told the sailor that his friend was dying of a cancer, 
it was affecting to see his change of manner towards 
the Spaniard, to mark his rough responsive caresses 
and sympathetic murmurs. " Fancy me being with 
him all this time, and not to know that ! " he ex- 
claimed, huskily, as if he had a lump in his throat. 



COMMERCE IN LAS PALM AS. 



34i 



Among other buildings of credit to Las Palmas, the 
theatre, the courts of justice, and the market halls must 
not be forgotten. The theatre is an imposing pile that 
would take high rank in Paris : erected at a cost of 
£16,000, and adapted for about fifteen hundred specta- 
tors. It has evidently been designed not only to do 
honour to present Las Palmas, but to meet the needs 
of the city when its importance has swelled accord- 
ing to the aspirations of its more enterprising citizens. 
The market halls adjoin the theatre, close to the 
sandy shore, and the spray of the big rollers at times 
wets both buildings alike. The fish market is a per- 
fect institution : cool, light, airy, and graceful. Be- 
tween it and the regular produce market may be seen 
groups of nondescript merchants, squatting on the 
pavements under an awning. Pedlars here offer for 
sale crude and home-made crucifixes, the figure of 
Christ rendered ghastly with bloodstains. The large 
red bowls and jars which are also abundant, come 
from Atalaya, an inland village long famed for its 
workers in clay. The savage-looking little girls, with 
large impudent eyes, who stand by the pots, have 
brought them to town on their heads. If they may 
sell to the value of sixpence, it is enough to 
compensate for the labour and their fifteen-mile 
walk. In the produce market, one notices the 
fine oranges. In all the islands, none can compare 
with these of Grand Canary. For threepence one 
may buy ten of them, large and juicy and sweet. 
But here, as in Santa Cruz, the octroi seems hard 
upon the people. The old woman who brings her 
goat into the town to sell its milk pays rather more 



342 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



than a half-penny a day for the privilege ; and it 
costs her not less than two shillings to offer a pig in 
public market. 

The courts of justice of Las Palmas occupy an old 
conventual building, with a church tower attached, in 
a back street. Here is the supreme court of the 
archipelago (real audicncia) ; with a pretentious 
appanage of officials in cocked hats. The attire of 
the judges is elegant, and tolerably fitted to the 
climate ; black silk-velvet gowns, with white lace at 
the neck and wrists, are its characteristics. As for the 
executive of these courts, it is the same as in Spain. 
The litigator has no pleasant time of it. This very 
day, for example, there was a bankruptcy case which 
fairly showed the looseness of procedure in commer- 
cial law. Before failing, the bankrupt had transferred 
all his property to his sons. As many distinct law- 
suits were now in progress for the recovery of this 
property, as there were creditors against the bank- 
rupt's estate. In England, of course, a general repre- 
sentative would sue for the entire body of creditors. 
Imagine, therefore, the loss of time, and the expense 
of this Spanish method, which is so delightfully 
Spanish that it is likely long to continue. 

The weather during the few days I spent in Las 
Palmas was curious. The same gloom which the 
clouds of the Peak cast over the valley of Orotava 
came daily upon us in Grand Canary, though here it 
was not due to the mountains. The " trade 
winds," now blowing lustily, brought thick banks of 
vapour with them, which darkened the sea horizon 
east and south. The combined effect of this gloom 



EVENING IN LAS PALM AS. 



343 



and the tremendous surf upon the coast was as sug- 
gestive of storm as the wildest north-easter of Sep- 
tember in the Hebrides or the Shetlands. 

It is to combat these high seas that Las Palmasis 
so busily pushing forward its harbour works. These, 
begun in 1S85, will, when finished, extraordinarily 
improve the commercial standing of the town. A 
breakwater of nearly a mile in length is designed to 
run from the Isleta towards the capital. The enclosed 
area of water will be of depth and extent enough for 
the safe anchorage of a fleet. But the loose sand- 
hills of the land boundary of this harbour of refuge 
will probably be troublesome. These works are in 
the hands of an English contractor, so there is no 
doubt of their speedy achievement. More than twenty 
thousand blocks of concrete, averaging about thirty 
tons bulk each, will be used in the composition of the 
breakwater ; and the artizans employed are numerous 
enough to form a village under the black volcanic 
cliffs of the Isleta, where they live. When the har- 
bour de la Luz is completed, it is believed that Euro- 
pean vessels bound for South Africa, South America, 
&c., will use this as their coaling station, in prefer- 
ence to Santa Cruz of Tenerife, or St. Vincent of the 
De Verde Islands. " And yet," say the Las Palmas 
merchants, " Santa Cruz presumes to think she is 
superior to us ! " 

But if the heat in the town during the day, 
notwithstanding the gale from the sea, is con- 
siderable, the cool sweet evening that follows the 
day is only the more enjoyable therefore. Then the 
beauty and fashion of Las Palmas are drawn to the 



344 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



promenade by the first sound of the regimental band 
which serenades them. Here, again, it is impossible 
not to notice the superb carriage of these southern 
dames. To be sure, it is outrageously theatrical. 
The ladies pace up and down the flags in the lamp- 
light, with elevated heads, arm in arm, keeping excel- 
lent time, talking of trifles light as air in loud con- 
sequential tones, bowing with emphasis to the»gen- 
tlemen whom they recognize, and turning their pretty 
painted faces to the right and left, that all the world 
may see them. Commonly, a Spanish lady is, it 
must be confessed, a little dull. It is the defect of 
her education, and national customs. She and her 
husband are two, not one ; or perhaps, speaking 
accurately, he might say but one and a quarter, if he 
have but the ordinary amount of respect for his 
spouse. Thus, circumstances have kept the Spanish 
lady a stranger to that mundane spirituality which, 
when genuine, is certainly engaging in a high degree. 
Nevertheless, she aspires to be witty and spir- 
ituclle, when she is before the public gaze. And 
hence the jarring spectacle of winsome faces, pow- 
dered profusely, distorted in the vain effort to be what 
they are not, and casting glances which would be the 
leers of a wanton if they were not those of a Spaniard. 

Las Palmas elects to bury its dead at the time 
when the promenade is at its gayest. The distant 
chanting of priests and boys, and the periodical toll- 
ing of the cathedral bell sounds over the blare of the 
trumpets, and the shrill chattering of the women. 
Then, slowly, the head of a funeral procession appears 
from the street by the Bishop's palace, and passes 



A FUNERAL. 



345 



between the promenade and the cathedral facade. 
Four laughing acolytes in scarlet, with crucifixes and 
gilded lamps on staves, come first. The priest with 
his book follows, attended on each side by a boy with 
a lamp to illumine his pages. He sings the sombre 
service as he stumbles over the uneven stones of the 
street. The body, under a pall, carried by four men, 
attended by a knot of others to relieve them, comes 
after the priest. And then, in long parallel lines, the 
friends and relations of the deceased, with lamps 
interspersed among them, close the procession. 

A funeral is not by its nature entertaining. But cus- 
tom and the church have so arranged it that in Las 
Palmas the burial of a citizen is even romantic— at 
least, in its initial stage. The priestly dirge, as we 
slowly pace through the streets of the city, the bob- 
bing of the gilded lamps, held all awry by the acolytes, 
the low exclamations of interest or pity from the 
groups of women standing at their open doors to see 
the files of mourners, and the cheerful chirp of 
crickets when we get beyond the borough, and are 
passing between clumps of aloes and fields of tall 
maize, guided by the funereal lamps and the stars 
alone — all this is calculated to affect a stranger whose 
heart is not hardened to emotional influences of 
every kind. 

The heavy lava-stone portal of the cemetery bears 
the inscription : " Do not be deaf to the voice that 
tells you all is illusion except death." Here all the 
lamps save two are puffed out by the boys, and most 
of the mourners return to the city, with fresh cigars 
between their lips. If you would see the end, how- 



346 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



ever, join the ten or twelve others who accompany 
the chief mourner within the gates. A man with a 
sack of lime on his shoulders, and a pipe in his 
mouth, walking with the arrogance of one proud 
without cause, precedes the coffin, as it is lifted from 
iron staircase to staircase until the particular niche 
in the high columbarium destined to receive it is 
attained. It is then set on the ground ; the lid is 
removed ; and the man empties the lime over the 
deceased, methodically spreading and pressing it 
until nothing of the body is visible save the tips of 
the small well-shod feet. The sexton keeps his pipe 
in his mouth while he does his work. The chief 
mourner, while minutely watching the process 
attendant upon the burial of his mother, lights a 
cigarette, and chats with his friends. And the two 
remaining acolytes grin and play tricks by holding 
their lamps so that grotesque shadows flutter across 
the lime man, and the dead woman hid under 
lime. At length, the latter stands up with an 
interrogative grunt. " Are you satisfied, Serior ? " 
" Perfectly," replies the chief mourner. The lid is 
now replaced, the coffin pushed energetically into 
its destined groove, and all is over. Twenty-four 
hours ago, the deceased was alive and well. Twenty- 
four hours hence, she will be half cremated. If the 
Spaniards are expeditious about nothing else, they 
lose no time in the disposal and dispersal of what 
remains of their dead. 



CHAPTER XX. 



Characteristics of Grand Canary — The noisy sleeper — A sadden 
idea — Pancho and the Andalusian — The Caldera de Van- 
dama — Tafira — Atalaya — Probable pedigree of the dwellers 
in Atalaya — Santa Brigida — San Mateo — Pancho's relations 
— The priest and his assistants — Across country — Ginamar 
— A pretty prospect — Telde — Troglodytes and aristocrats — 
A brisk ride in the dark — S.S. Opobo — The last of the 
Peak. 

Grand Canary can boast of no living volcano 
like the Peak of Tenerife ; nor has it an extinct 
crater to compare with the prodigious Caldera of 
Palma. But it relies for its individuality on the very 
beautiful mountain recesses or sheltered plateaux 
which cluster at the bases of the high peaks in the 
centre of the island. There is more water here than 
in Tenerife : hence the brilliant verdure of these 
Elysian nooks ; their incredible fruitfulness ; and 
their freshness even under a blazing June sun. The 
circular coastline of the island is reft systematically 
by barrancos, which ought to have streams in their 
deep dry beds. But the Canadians know better than 
to permit any of the supply of their precious springs 
to How to waste into the salt sea. Tanks and con- 
duits intervene between the springs and the barvan- 



34* 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



cos. and the water, for the conveyance of which 
nature has arranged with so much foresight, is all 
turned to useful account. 

It is rather by accident than design that I am able 
to say anything about the interior of this island. 
Spring was merging into summer, and the ophthalmic 
glare of the white houses of Las Palmas daily made 
me long for a homeward-bound ship. One morning, 
however, I found myself afoot for the day at the 
ridiculous hour of half-past four. It was in this wise. 
I had incautiously permitted the hotel manager to 
let the second bed in my double-bedded room to a 
gentleman, who was not expected to appear until late 
in the night. My companion proved to be the chief 
engineer of a Spanish steamer en route from Buenos 
Ayres to Cadiz, a rosy, great-girthed Scotchman, 
who lurched into the bedroom, very drunk, at one 
o'clock in the morning. His eccentricities of course 
awoke me, and when he lay in bed (in his clothes) 
he snored so that a continuance of sleep was, for me, 
impossible. I shouted to him to moderate his 
spirits ; but of what use was it trying to arouse a 
man accustomed to the shrieks and groans of ma- 
chinery ? He was as deaf to everything as a dead 
man. And so, at four o'clock, I left him to snore 
alone, and prowled forth into Las Palmas' streets, 
bent on hiring a horse and a guide, and going 
straightway as far in a day as was possible. 

By good luck, both horse and guide were found 
before six o'clock ; and thus we started on a 
long tour in the prime of the morning. The horse 
was an odd Andalusian : so tall that his legs 



THE CALDERA DE VANDAMA. 



349 



seemed to have outgrown his body, and with a 
movement like, the jerk of a camel. He was also 
hideously bony, and had a sore under the saddle 
which would have kept both of us at home, if I had 
known of it ere the journey began. In spite of these 
apparent demerits, however, the brave fellow took me 
forty miles with unflagging pluck, in the fourteen 
hours between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. My guide, too, 
was not of common mould. An ordinary Canarian 
would have shrugged his shoulders at the prospect 
of the exertion implied in the programme submitted 
to him. But Pancho, as he was called, was brought 
forward to me as a lad of spirit, whose energies were 
rather heightened than depressed by an exceptional 
undertaking. He had lived through a stormy youth 
in Havana, been criminally associated with blood- 
shed, could show five knife marks about his body : 
and was still untamed. They told me I could have 
no better guide, if I would take him with his pecca- 
dilloes. Never was there such a babbler as this 
Pancho. Gossip and tales of adventure raced one 
after the other from his tongue ; and withal he was 
my very obedient servant. 

The Caldera de Vandama was our first aim in the 
day. This extinct crater lies in the hills about six 
miles south-west of Las Palmas. It is approached 
by the high road to Tafira, a pretty upland village 
embosomed in palm trees, and connected with the 
capital by the San Mateo daily coach. In Tafira, 
Pancho had a scare. We were clambering to its 
church (of which the exterior belies the trivial in- 
terior), when a man in black, holding a watch in one 



35o 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



hand, and a rosary in the other, stopped us authori- 
tatively. " London is dead ! " said he, solemnly, 
with a roll of the eyes. I was about to ask for 
particulars, when he broke forth into a torrent of 
filthy abuse — some of his expressions being too gross 
for Pancho subsequently to reiterate ; and then 
stepped aside with a murmur about otro rcloj ("another 
watch "). The man was a local priest who had 
gone mad. So affected was the superstitious Pancho 
by this encounter that he forgot to point out to 
me the Palm of Tafira, a notable tree about sixty 
feet high, and not without a legend attached to its 
melodious title. 

At Tafira we diverged from the thoroughfare, 
and struck upon a series of basins of fertile vineland 
of singular appearance. The soil was a black volcanic 
sand, still tinctured with sulphur. But how the vines 
revelled in it ! Their greenery was delightful ; and 
the gorgeous hedges of geraniums and. aloes (some 
with flowering masts twenty feet high soaring 
from their midst), with here and there a broad 
stunted umbrella pine, and the bold outline of the 
olive hills on all sides combined to form a landscape 
of rare charm. Nor must I forget the scarlet poppies 
among the vines, and the bushes of yellow retama 
which sweetened the air. 

We climbed through these vineyards and by rugged 
red lanes to a dimple in the outline of one of the 
hills. Here was a large farmhouse ; and a few yards 
from its walls the Caldera of Vandama was disclosed. 
This is the most perfect crater in the Canaries. It 
is as smooth a bowl of earth and rocks as nature 



ATALAYA. 



353 



well could contrive. Only at one point do the en- 
vironing hills rise into pre-eminence. Thence, from 
the summit, to the little red farm at the bottom of 
the Caldera, the distance may be 1,000 feet. In 
upper diameter, the bowl is perhaps half a mile. I 
cannot conjecture as to the age of this extinct 
volcano. It is certainly as dead as Palma's Caldera : 
though the jet-black reaches of charred earth upon 
its sides look as if they had but yesterday been 
released from the flames. Euphorbia, wild vines, 
nopals, fig trees and brambles grow sparsely upon 
the slopes ; and from the midst of them two brown, 
wide-nostrilled boys climbed up like cats at the sight 
of us, and besought Pancho to take me into the farm 
to taste their mother's wine. For threepence, a full 
decanter was offered us : the wine was heady, and 
yet I had trouble to deter my guide from drinking 
every drop of it. 

By a short cut over the hills, Pancho now took me 
in less than half an hour to the village of Atalaya, 1 
where the clay pots of the Las Palmas market are 
made. Village, however, is a name too complimen- 
tary for it. " Warren " were more apt ; for it is but 
a number of caves in a precipitous, isolated, gritstone 
rock, falling boldly to a glen with a river bed in it. 
Atalaya is the Burslem of Grand Canary. Every 
cave contains the rude appliances tor the manufac- 
ture of the pottery of the country ; and men, women, 
and children, clad but lightly, were squatting in the 
sun at the mouths of their abodes, handling the clay 
with speed and dexterity. 

1 I.e., The Giants' Burrow. 



t 



35,2 THE CANARY ISLANDS. 

Pancho confirmed the prevalent opinion about the 
populace of Atala)^a. They have no morality. They 
live like the beasts. The Church does not interfere 
with them. From the steep brow of their cliff-home, 
they look down at the pretty townlet of Santa 
Brigida, a mile away, surrounded by fruit trees, 
palms, and water tanks ; but the priest of Santa 
Brigida is nothing to them. Naked urchins were 
rolling about within sight of their mothers ; and the 
grown girls who left their work to follow, 'stare, and 
laugh at us, had as little clothing as they well could 
have had. Even the matrons of the coK5rnuni1*y, 
. broad dark dames, wore skirts to their nake'&jggs 
that the Lord Chamberlain might have shuddered 
at. Nor were they all in the strong health of open- 
air life. Deformities and sores seemed to taint them. 
" Turn round, child, and show your hump," said a 
mother to one of her luckless offspring, about whose 
malformation she was peculiarly proud; and the 
little sufferer held out her hand for quartitos when 
she had duly exhibited herself. 

This strange settlement is of so old a standing that 
it is probable its men and women, alone in the 
island, perpetuate the blood of the aboriginal Grand 
Canarians. Sosa, writing in 1678, says of the 
natives that they had a knack of making clay vessels 
without a mould, wheel, or any machinery whatever, 
and that such vessels were in common use in the 
villages. Well, Atalaya maintains this reputation. 
And when I had sat for a few minutes by the cave of 
one deft old woman, watching while she took the 
soft clay in her hands, briskly separated and 



SANTA B RIGID A. 



353 



fashioned it, finally in two or three minutes offering 
me a rude but well-shaped jar, scored with intricate 
f decorative lines — all the unaided work of her fingers ; 
and after an interested consideration of the features 
of the crowd around us, their broad cheekbones, 
large eyes of a lighter hazel than that derived from 
Spain, and wild free manners — I assured myself that 
here was aboriginal blood without doubt. Indeed, 
' it is like enough. For the civilized citizens of the 
adjacent town would as soon marry a negress as an 
Atalaya woman. The people of Atalaya have co- 
habited among themselves from time immemorial. 

The descent from this inhabited rock to the town 
of S a . Brigida was tiresome, though short. The 
hard matrix was wrought into the most defiant of 
surfaces ; so that the . Andalusian perspired and 
fretted until we again reached the high road. Thence, 
by a charming avenue of tall palms, we soon cantered 
into the town, which is more remarkable fo# the 
beauty of its valley than for anything archaeological 
or historical. In the neighbourhood, is the largest 
tank I have seen in the three islands. It is, in fact, 
a pond, and the profuse vegetation around it shows 
what water will do here. 

We left behind us the white tobacco factories and 
the church, boldly situated on the edge of a rock, to 
push on to San Mateo for our breakfast and a rest. 
The distance between the two places is barely a 
league ; but the rise is nearly a thousand feet. San 
Mateo is at the foot of the Saucillo mountain (6,639 
feet), which contests with the Pico del Pozo de las 
Nieves, about two miles farther south, the supremacy 

24 



354 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



of elevation in Grand Canary. Thus, as we advanced 
up the valley towards San Mateo, its head, these 
glorious mountain tops were before us, now unveiled, 
and now again hidden by a drift of cloud. The Sau- 
cillo is a conspicuously abrupt rock, with an imposing 
foreground of broken hills and green dome-shaped 
hillocks. One mountain immediately behind San 
Mateo is noteworthy, and would repay investigation. 
It is precisely semi-circular, with a regular depression 
on the summit. As we saw it, with its smooth sides 
dappled with light and shade, and domineered by the 
dark cloud-wrapt peaks beyond it, this calderetta 
(for such it must be) was very picturesque. 

Pancho possessed an aunt and a cousin in San 
Mateo, and as the town has no inn, we went to his 
relations. These ladies received us with a half 
timorous reserve, that was no doubt due to his repu- 
tation for escapades. Pancho, on the other hand, was 
all enthusiasm, and would have kissed his cousin 
more than once, had she not coldly set him aside. 
With me, however, these good people were most 
hospitable. The hotel lunch on the Andalusian was 
supplemented with what they had in the house ; and 
both the ladies sat with bright eyes to see me 
eat. Pancho forgot himself so far as to wish to join 
me, but the indignant protest of both his relations 
reminded him of the proprieties. 

San Mateo is but a mean village, about 2,400 feet 
above the sea. Its houses are built for a temperate 
clime, though the aloes and geraniums in the open 
air testify to the warmth even here. Besides the 
church, it contains no building of interest. We 



THE MAIDENS AND THE FLOWERS. 355 



found the church, however, in gala dress. The aisle 
was cumbered with boughs and heaps of fresh 
flowers, among which five pretty girls were kneeling 
or sitting, making wreaths and bouquets. The cum 
also was there, alone with the girls and a life-size 
wooden Virgin, in a blue dress, covered with a white 
gauze veil, which he lifted reverently, that I might 
see her features. " May is dedicated to the 
flowers," he remarked, alluding to the Whit Sunday 
decorations then being prepared. Thanks to Pancho, 
the priest and his fair assistants welcomed me as 
they would not otherwise have welcomed a Protest- 
ant. In a low voice, he explained to the delighted 
man that as I always enquired for the church when 
we passed through a village, and as I had looked 
sorry when told that Atalaya had no church, there- 
fore I was Catolico. Neither the priest nor the pretty 
girls rejected this argument, and so they were all very 
courteous. And the priest, without a thought of the 
consequences, asked the prettiest of the girls (whom 
he unwisely addressed as such, before her companions 
to give me a sweet flower, that I might keep her in 
mind. The girl, who was really beautiful, blushed 
and smiled, and obeyed her spiritual master — though 
as she and I could not agree as to the sweetest of 
the flowers at her disposal, the business was a pro- 
tracted one. And then, with a devout wish for a 
prosperous journey, they gave me " Good-bye." I 
again mounted the horse, and as we moved briskly 
out of San Mateo, Pancho told me what he thought 
of priests in general, and the priest of San Mateo in 
particular. Unless he exaggerated, I fear the pretti- 



356 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



est of the girls in the church has, ere this, been in 
jeopardy. 

It was two o'clock when we left San Mateo for 
Telde, near the east coast. I had included Telde in 
the programme, without much knowledge of the 
difficulties of .the way. But Pancho said we could 
not go due east from San Mateo, as I desired : the 
mountains were too rough. We had therefore to 
return to S a . Brigida, and take cross lanes for three 
or four hours through the richest vineyards and most 
enchanting country I have seen in the Canaries. We 
passed villas of all kinds built upon green knolls, and 
commanding wide views of valleys and hill tops near 
and distant. Some were painted as gaily as the 
vegetation and flowers surrounding them. Others 
again spoke of solid wealth : palatial stone mansions 
that could dispense with external decorations. 

We were all weary when at length the village of 
Ginamar appeared below us as the forerunner of 
Telde. Ginamar is a trivial collection of white 
houses, built upon lava of no very old date. Indeed, 
about a mile past the village, we crossed a lava flow 
that had burst from a small volcano hardly more 
than a stone's throw from the road. The hills here 
were arid and forbidding ; and the grey stream of 
once-molten matter trending down towards the sea, 
and sufficiently disintegrated to support clumps of 
euphorbia here and there, was positively cheerful 
compared to its surroundings. 

This dull landscape, the duller for some rain- 
clouds and the waning light, was, however, a fit 
prelude to the delicious spectacle of the plain and 



TELDE. 



357 



town of Telde, which appeared from a sharp bend in 
the road. We stepped from gloom into a clear soft twi- 
light ; and before us were white houses with steeples, 
and the semblance of minarets rising, among tall 
palms, from their midst. The white, compact town 
was set in a plain of intense greenness, bisected by a 
wide river bed of blue stones, and bounded beyond 
by some conical hills, which, though dim and parched 
in reality, were now etherialised by the pale golden 
light of evening. " Is it not fine ! " observed Pancho, 
when we had involuntarily paused for a moment. 
" Ah ! there is no place in the world like Telde — for 
its oranges ! " 

Telde is the second city in Grand Canary, and 
contains about 7,000 inhabitants. Here the careful 
genealogist may find blood as blue as the best in 
Spain. For the settlement was founded, and the 
district peopled, by a number of noble adventurers, 
who joined Pedro de Vera in the completion 
of the conquest which Rejon actually began. The 
villas round the city, and the larger houses in the 
city, still bear imposing heraldic devices, some of 
which have survived the stock to which they belonged, 
though others have not. And truly during our short 
ride across the stout lava bridge which spans the 
river, and past the rich suburban orange groves, 
cochineal plantations, and gardens fringed with white 
lilies and scarlet geraniums, it was impossible not to 
admire the taste of these early colonists. But 
others, besides aristocrats, now people Telde. From 
their holes in the rocks, a number of troglodytic girls 
were chirping as lustily as the sparrows in the 



358 



THE CANARY ISLANDS. 



palm trees on the other side of the road, and rough- 
looking women with cigars between their lips met 
us, squatted on little asses laden with new-cut beans 
and flowers. Some of the men here wear a garment, 
too, which the blue-blooded are not supposed to love 
— a hempen blouse, quaintly edged with black orna- 
mentation. 

A short half-hour was all the time we could spare 
for Telde in the course of our madcap excursion. 
But the town is less attractive than its neighbour- 
hood. The church of S. Juan has a stone portal of 
dainty filigree work. More of its features I could not 
examine, because a couple of priests were busy con- 
fessing young girls in both its aisles. The women of 
Telde are said to be beautiful — but where are they 
not ? I was introduced to one young lady, who 
was reputed to be muy simpdtico ; but she sat on the 
edge of her chair, with her hands folded tight in her 
lap, and with down-cast eyes, which she only lifted 
when she said, " Si, senor" to my observations ; so 
that I could judge neither of her head nor her heart. 

Of the three leagues which separate Telde from 
Las Palmas, I rode two in the dark. The thorough- 
fare is of the first class, but of course it is not lighted 
by lamps. In places it skirts the sea-shore, and here I 
had the glow of the white surf for an illumination. 
In one part, it is carried through the sea-cliffs by a 
tunnel about one hundred yards long, with a lamp in 
the middle of the tunnel. Elsewhere the shadow of 
overhanging rocks made the darkness yet more dark. 
Finally, the lights of the capital appeared, and our 
long day came to an end. 



THE LAST OF THE PEAK. 



359 



On the following morning the ss. Opobo came into 
harbour, and dashed my hopes of another scamper 
into the interior. Pancho early reported himself at 
the hotel, both ready and desirous. However, the 
master of the Andalusian thought the poor animal 
had had enough work for two or three days, and 
he wisely kept it in the stable. 

We steamed from Grand Canary in the night, 
and, on the ensuing day, from Santa Cruz of Ten- 
erife. Our farewell to the Peak was a long one : 
hour after hour we watched it from the deck ; and 
it was full evening, and eight hours after leaving 
the island, ere its rosy cone faded completely out 
of sight. 



APPENDIX. 



The reader of the foregoing pages may, now that he 
has come to the last of them, like to know a few 
details about "ways and means" of reaching the 
Canary Islands, and the manner and cost of life in 
the archipelago. The following particulars claim, 
therefore, to be exclusively practical. 

Communication. — The boats of at least three Steam- 
ship Companies call regularly at Santa Cruz of 
Tenerife, or Las Palmas of Grand Canary. Of these, 
the New Zealand mail steamers (Shaw, Savill, and 
Co.) make the voyage from Plymouth in less than five 
days. They go monthly, and offer a ticket for Canary 
for £14, or a return ticket for £25, available for six 
months. The African Steamship Company's boats 
ply weekly between Liverpool and the West Coast, 
calling at the Canaries. These vessels are slow, de- 
manding about seven days for the course ; but the 
return tickets for £ 15, available for twelve months, 
which this Company offer, are so extraordinarily 
cheap that something may be forgiven them in the 
matter of speed and accommodation. From London, 
also, there is a monthly service in the boats of For- 



362 



APPENDIX. 



wood Bros, and Co., who give a single ticket for 
£12, or a return ticket for £18. In addition to these 
English lines, there is direct communication between 
Hamburg, Havre, and Cadiz, by first-class steamers 
of Germany, France, and Spain. 

As for intercommunication between the seven 
islands of the Canaries, that is not so easy. A correo, 
or mail smack, goes six times monthly between Tene- 
rife and Grand Canary ; weekly between Tenerife and 
Palma ; between Tenerife and Gomera and Hierro ; 
and between Grand Canary, Fuerteventura, and Lan- 
zarote. Besides this, there is occasional steam con- 
nection between the three chief islands, though that 
between Santa Cruz of Tenerife and Las Palmas of 
Grand Canary can alone be relied upon. Contrary 
winds may at any time lengthen the voyage by the 
correo most inordinately, and as victualling is not 
provided on board, the passenger's appetite may 
become as rabid as his impatience. 

Accommodation. — Already there are English hotels 
in Santa Cruz, Orotava, Laguna, and Las Palmas, 
where a man may hear no Spanish, and dine as he 
dines at home, only, maybe, more luxuriously. At 
these hotels the charges are European, ranging from 
about 8s. to 14s. a day. The Grand Hotel at Orotava 
is incomparably the best of them. Here, in early 
spring, I found about seventy-five English people — a 
colony quite enough to Anglicize the small town of 
Puerto. Elsewhere, however, the hotels and ventas of 
the country are Spanish to the backbone. In Palma, 
English is unknown, and so is English cuisine. But 
a dollar (4s.) or even only four pesetas (3s. 4d.) per 



APPENDIX. 



363 



diem is, in these native inns, the tariff, instead of the 
8s. of the English hotels. The Fonda Europa, in Las 
Palmas, is a good Spanish hotel. Fleas, however, are 
too distinctive an attribute of the native inns. In 
outlying villages, where there is no venta, or wine 
shop, with a truckle bed for a stranger, the traveller 
must be dependent upon letters or his guide's savoir 
faire. x 

Roads. — Except in the vicinity of the capitals, 
the roads of the islands are very bad. Bicycles 
would serve between Santa Cruz of Tenerife and 
Orotava, between Santa Cruz and Guimar and, in 
Grand Canary, for a few leagues, in two or three 
directions from Las Palmas ; but elsewhere not at 
all. When the authorities finish the Canarian scheme 
of roads, the islands will be admirably provided. But 
the work will be a tedious one. 

Horses, &c. — Every one rides in the Canaries. At 
Orotava, it is possible to get excellent steeds for about 
a dollar a day, or £1 weekly. Two or three Spaniards 
make a good living by letting their beasts to visitors. 
The horses are strong and gentle, and unused to 
luxurious feeding. In Las Palmas and Santa Cruz, 
horses are rarer than in Orotava. In Palma, mules 
serve instead of horses. In the eastern islands of 
Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, the traveller may hire 
a camel. 

Guides. — For tours round the islands, a guide is 
necessary, as much for the roads, as for his help 

1 In the neighbourhood of Orotava and Las Palmas, and 
probably in Palma, with a little trouble, villas and apartments 
may be obtained at moderate rental. 



364 



APPENDIX. 



towards a bed in the evening. It is usual to pay two 
dollars a day for each man and each horse used in an 
ascent of the Peak of Tenerife, and the same estimate, 
or a little less, may hold for other protracted tours. 
A boy to look after the horse may, however, take 
the place of a man for a toston, or a shilling a day 
instead of two dollars. 

Language. — It is difficult to say how a man would 
control or associate with his guide, or hold satisfactory 
communion with the native Spaniards, without a 
certain knowledge of Spanish. In Palma, such know- 
ledge is essential. I believe there are but two people 
in that island who could say " How do you do ? " 
It is equally essential in the country parts of Tenerife 
and Grand Canary. 

Climate. — On this subject, the Canaries compel 
superlative praise. Our winter and spring are the 
best seasons for visiting the islands. In summer, 
though the heat is not on the whole excessive (except 
on the south and south-eastern sides of the islands), 
the mosquitoes are troublesome. Equability and 
dryness are the characteristics of the climate. The 
average temperature of Puerto in January is 62*2, 
and in August 77*2 — a difference of but 15 . On a like 
comparison, Pau varies no less than 35*8, and Nice 
29*9. Again, the mean temperature for the winter 
months at Puerto is 63*8, compared with London 
41*7, Pau 44*6, Nice 49*6, Rome 51*6, Algiers 58*3, 
and Madiera 61*7. Even Florida, with its winter 
mean of 587, is thus inferior to Tenerife. But the 
extraordinary dryness of the Canaries gives them a 
vast advantage over most health resorts. The day 



APPENDIX. 



365 



and night temperature differs but three or four degrees. 
Paper left exposed to the night air retains its crisp- 
ness as if it were in a heated room; and it is the 
custom to sleep with open windows. 

The Necessaries for a tour in the Canaries are but 
few. Patience, civility, a knowledge of Spanish, a 
certain amount of money, and a broad-brimmed straw 
hat are indispensable. I do not think "Keating" is 
much use, unless it be taken in bushels: the Canarian 
fleas (whom, by the by, Peter Pindar memorialized 
for their agility) are so active. The Canarians are a 
peaceful folk. A revolver is therefore useless, except 
as a work of art, to exhibit for the stupefaction of the 
peasants. 

Sport. — In this particular, the islands are sadly 
deficient. Their nature and limited extent, of course, 
accounts for it. A country that begins and ends its 
catalogue of mammiferous animals with " the horse, 
the ass, or the donkey, and elegant mules as a cross- 
breed between the two," must be considered rather 
tame. In fact, the only food for powder that I know 
of are the different kinds of birds (many of which do 
but hibernate in the Canaries, and return to England 
and the north in the summer), rabbits, and partridges. 
Locally, as in the time of the aborigines, ferrets are 
used for the rabbits. On the south, that is, the hot 
side of Tenerife, there are many partridges. Rats 
abound in the islands, and, though they cannot be 
said to offer much sport to the sportsman, they are 
peculiar in that in times of drought and scarcity 
they hunt each other, and eat those of their comrades 
they succeed in killing. 



UNWIN BROTHERS, 
CHILWORTH AND LONDON. 



3477-6 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



020 231 931 2 



